Music Collector Extraordinaire

  I came across an article earlier today that simply blew my mind. According to The Toronto Star, a man in Pittsburgh owned over three million vinyl records and close to 300,000 CDs in his personal collection. And he put the entire collection up for sale on eBay! I can't even begin to imagine what 300,000 CDs all stacked up in a row would look like, never mind the fact that I don't think I could ever part with all that music in the first place.

  The article goes on to say that the man has tried to sell his entire collection to various organisations interested in preserving popular music in the past. But somehow, the deals always fell through. Finally he decided to put the collection up on eBay and hopes that the bid will find takers. If not anything else, his post has received unbelievable attention and many people have logged on to eBay just to see if this offer is for real! The collection was offered at USD 3 million, quoted as the starting bid.

  The proud owner of this collection, Mr Paul Mawhinney stated that he wanted to spend more time with his family and look after his own health. He owns Record Rama Sound Archive store in Pittsburgh, the place where he stores his musical treasures. He has been quoted as saying that he has spent umpteen hours in the store just organising and indexing his music. As part of his bid online, he has offered the new owners of this collection, his services to catalogue and index the music for up to six months.

  At first I though this story was just hype but type in "ebay, world's greatest music collection" in your search box and you'll see what I mean when I say that this story made news all over the world. As for me, I don't think I'd ever be able to part with my music. I don't own a cassette player any more but still find it almost impossible to let go of my old tapes, each with a different tale to tell.

  I don't know if I'd be able to remember every record if I had close to 300,000 but there's nothing like revisiting some old CDs or tapes that you haven't heard for a while. There's something wonderful about listening to some of your classics and discovering new nuances and aspects that you didn't observe before. It's like reading a good book that you've read a million times before but there's always something new to discover within its pages. While I'm pretty sure I won't be able to afford 300,000 records any time soon, the 300-odd that I do have, deserve a visit soon.