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$3m Record Collection Guy Calls In!

5:51 PM GMT 20/02/2008

$3m Record Collection Guy Calls In!

PAUL MAWHINNEY IS the Pittsburgh record dealer and collector who’s selling his 3,000,000 slices of vinyl and 300,000 CDs (there’s some 8-tracks, too) on ebay this week. Although valued at $50m, the reserve price on the collection is a mere $3m, meaning he could easily end up taking a $47m hit. That’s if he sells it at all, of course. As I write, there’s less than a day left on the auction and bids are conspicuous by their absence.

But Mawhinney claims not to care about the money and says he’s quietly confident of the bidding hotting up. Besides, it’s time for the collection to find a new home – ideally some kind of museum/library that thinks his enormous stockpile of Perry Como records represents a priceless cultural artefact.

The question haunting MOJO was, Is he mad? Or is this in fact the first moment of clarity he’s enjoyed in half a century? We rang him up and asked him….

You’ve been building this collection for five decades. Why part with it now?
I’m gonna be 69 in September. I’ve got three kids and five grandchildren and I’m legally blind and I had a coupla strokes a coupla years ago. It’s time to slow down and enjoy life.

What was the first record you bought?
Jezebel by Frankie Lane [1951].

When did collecting records become an obsession?
I had 160,000 records in my house and my wife said to me, Why don’t you open up a record store and get these things out of my house?! She even suggested the name: RecordRama.

Selling a $50m collection for a $3m reserve. Taking a bit of a hit there…
I want to find a home for it. I’ve tried to get everyone interested – The Library Of Congress and people like that. But I just couldn’t get them off their feet. They just don’t have the capital, or the labour. Whenever I’ve visited the Library Of Congress they’ve had tons of records still uncatalogued because they can’t afford the help. Anyway, it was time for me to move on.

Does that mean you’re no longer buying?
[Laughs] I still buy. I just bought two things over the counter today, two relatively rare records. One of ’em’s by Paul And Dale, a $75 record. And one by Johnny Angel & The Halos, a local artist on a national label, Felsted.

What are your buying criteria?
I collect most everything major label and I try to get it all – after all, you never know when something’s going to be valuable. There are some things that I don’t catalogue that are horrible and I figure no-one will want in a lifetime, but I catalogue most majors. I don’t seek out [punk or indie] unless it’s local, but most major stuff I’ll save.

And what’s your favourite record?
My favourite artist of all time is a doo wop group called The Five Keys – I couldn’t possibly pick a favourite song of theirs. The rarest record I have is a Rolling Stones record that was never released. It was pressed for FM radio. It was all the early mono singles remixed in stereo for the first time. They made about 300 copies of that and never offered it for sale. That’s worth $10,000.

And what’s the most valuable doo-wop record you have?
I have doo-wop records that are worth thousands of dollars. I have a Hank Ballard & The Midnighters album that’s worth $2,000. Early soul and R&B albums are rare because the market was so singles-dominated.

If I came round this afternoon for a cup of tea, what record would you play for me?
I would put a record on called Let Me Love You by George Goodman & His Headliners [1964] a wonderful ballad and a Number 1 record in Pittburgh and Baltimore. It’s the most released non-hit record in history!

What with the coming of the “MP3 revolution”, was it a case of “If I don’t find a buyer now I never will”…?
Listen, vinyl’s gonna live for a long, long time. I’ll also tell you something negative about MP3. The quality of the music is terrible. They cut the bottoms out and cut the tops out and they compress what’s in the middle. Vinyl sounds ten times better than any CD, and everyone who knows about records is hooked on that. Also, the kids are really getting re-interested in vinyl, and groups are starting to press stuff on vinyl again, sometimes exclusively.

Which records are you keeping hold of?
I’m not keeping a single record. I transferred all the things I love onto CD, so I’ll always have music. But I just want to see the collection live. That’s more important to me than anything.

How confident are you that you’ll find a buyer?
I’m almost positive. There are a couple of bidders preparing their money in London and Germany as we speak.

It struck me that the ebay auction might be more about the publicity, and that what you really wanted was a private buyer after the auction closes…
Oh I think it’s gonna go in the auction. There are 800 people watching the result. And when they get down to the wire those bids will come in and then they’ll start fighting over it. That collection’s gonna be out of here by the weekend.

And what are you going to do with the money?
I’m going to make my family happy.

Interview by: Danny Eccleston

Posted by Danny_Eccleston at 5:51 PM GMT 20/02/2008

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  • ther's actually been three bids

    Posted by Pat Carty at 10:40 AM GMT 21/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • And someone in Ireland bought it!

    Posted by Pat Carty at 6:10 PM GMT 21/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • "I don’t seek out [punk or indie] unless it’s local, but most major stuff I’ll save."..... hardly the greatest record collection in the world then!

    Posted by Clint Iguana at 6:58 PM GMT 21/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • What a dolt. His family would've been happier if he spend some time with them instead of collecting his stupid records.

    Posted by Joh at 10:52 PM GMT 22/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • This guy sounds like one of those losers over at the Steve Hoffman forums.

    Posted by Dizzy at 10:53 PM GMT 22/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • I loved your article!
    A great interview very well-written and informative.

    I live in California, and we had a fabulous vinyl store nearby, but it went out of business, Rhino Records, I bought a lot of vinyl there and really miss it, especially
    all the rare promo albums.

    I wish him all the happiness in the world,
    my collection was also sold, but I really needed the money at the time.

    Hollywood is where I go now to get the best vinyl around or on ebay.

    I think whoever buys this collection is really getting their moneys worth, here in Ca., vinyl has always been very popular with
    musicians,etc.

    Posted by Antoinette Nason at 3:15 AM GMT 23/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • RE: Dizzy

    Yeah, those Steve Hoffman nerds are really something else. They probably all have 10,000 records in their mom's basement, right next to where they sleep.

    Posted by Reed at 3:47 AM GMT 23/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • RE: Pat Carty

    It would break my heart to sell my record collection but fair play to the guy if the money is needed elsewhere

    Posted by John Hatch at 12:18 PM GMT 27/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • RE: Pat Carty

    It would break my heart to sell my record collection but fair play to the guy if the money is needed elsewhere

    Posted by John Hatch at 12:18 PM GMT 27/02/2008 Report Abuse

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  • I am sorry to say quantity rarely means quality.True vinly is special but this collection frOm what the owner really likes must be very average.Before i am shot down in flames i would like to share an experience ! One day i had to go to see a building project that had some very serious problems .One of the problems was that a product i was selling on behalf of the company i worked for at the time had supposedly failed.On inspection it was obvious that it was applicator error .The contractor ranted and raved that he had been doing this kind of work for 25 years so who were we to say that he was at fault? I rePied that i had ivested thousands of $,s in equipment and training over the years but i still made seious mistakes on the golf course.
    quality over quantity and confidence comes from know how.
    regards
    jimmy

    Posted by jimmy newark at 10:59 PM GMT 01/05/2008 Report Abuse

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  • The problem with vinyl is mass. A growing collection of LPs gets heavier and heavier and takes up more and more space. Depending on where you live, space can be quite a premium. If someone with a 10,000-LP collection was ever caught in an apartment fire, they'd be majorly f-cked!!! am I right? There are those who catalog their CD's as if they were LPs (get rid of the thick jewel cases in favor of clear plastic sleeves). In terms of sound quality, for those who are really really really picky and snobbish about vinyl-vs.-CD, doesn't an EQUALIZER go a long way toward adjusting sound quality properly for CD sound? (with respect to the album being played and how one would like to hear it)

    Posted by JoJo at 8:45 AM GMT 05/08/2008 Report Abuse

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  • Wow, I've only heard of the infamous Steve Hoffman forums 'through the grapevine', as it were. The fact they've been mentioned in connection to a Mojo article states that they've arrived...

    Posted by Lee Morgan at 6:07 PM GMT 10/03/2010 Report Abuse

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  • Wow, I've only heard of the infamous Steve Hoffman forums 'through the grapevine', as it were. The fact they've been mentioned in connection to a Mojo article states that they've arrived...

    Posted by Lee Morgan at 6:08 PM GMT 10/03/2010 Report Abuse

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  • Steve Hoffman is a well known master tape thief. The only place to which he should arrive is prison. His minions would then jump from cliffs like the lemmings they are.

    Posted by No kool aid, thanks. at 10:08 PM GMT 10/03/2010 Report Abuse

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  • Most of the albums in the collection being sold can also be found in massive quantities at FEED YOUR HEAD RECORDS in Atlanta, GA. I remember when a soldier who went off to serve in Iraq stopped off at FEED YOUR HEAD RECORDS and unloaded some shit vinyl on me. I was sorry to hear that he was killed in action. I still cherish the copy he gave me of Ronald Reagan's "Freedom's Finest Hour" which I display prominently at FEED YOUR HEAD RECORDS.

    Posted by tHomoZ at 2:57 AM GMT 11/03/2010 Report Abuse

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