Today I saw a video on Paul Mawhinney, a Pittsburgh man with the largest record collection in the world. Made in 2008, the video tells the tale of Mawhinney and his desperate attempt to sell his collection before it becomes too much of a burden on his health and life.
Originally valued at over 50 million dollars, Mawhinney has used every avenue to part ways with his collection and keep it in the hands of a fellow music lover. He even posted it on eBay, where he almost had a sale, until the buyer was found to be a fraud.
Check out the video. My comments will be proceeding.
The Archive from Sean Dunne on Vimeo.
No offense, but I don't feel sorry for the guy. Sure, his collection was expensive and he wants to see a return on his investment. But he is sitting on thousands, if not millions of songs that are not digitalized yet.
Why not?
It is because they won't "sound right" after they digitally compressed? Is it because he is scared no one will want them? Are they that bad?
If he digitalized the collection, he could sell it over and over to people curious about his music, not just the fact that he has some antique media in a warehouse. Those records contain insight to bands, trends, and people that we might never know about or be able to hear because Mawhinney is waiting for the right buyer.
Recently Mawhinney has opened his doors for interested buyers of individual products, but of course there is a catch. Buyers must purchase at least $5,000 dollars with of media after putting down a $500 guarantee that they will show up.
I wonder how much it would cost to digitalize the entire collection and leave Mawhinney with the physical records. If his passion is about the music and not what it is recorded on, then he should accept some plan that gets the music to the ears of the most people. If he is an elitist, as many of the comments here suggest, then he may be far too concerned with the dying medium of vinyl to part ways with the sounds that are contained within.
Personally, I have no idea how to operate a record player, but that shouldn't prevent me from hearing the music in his collection. I'm sure he has some blues albums that would knock my socks off.
