MOG

GOOD GAWD ALMIGHTY

I WANT

MOG needs an ad sponsor to cover costs. we can then encode it and put it all the unreleased stuff up on web for free, sponsored by???

puma? adidas?  jack daniels?  fender?

any sponsors out there?

Go for it David! I'm salivating from watching that vid. Had heard of this collection from a post a few months back by Mr. Frost I believe. Cool to actually see the owner & his collection. Talk about passion! Thanks

Nokia calls themselves patrons of music. Absolut spend a fortune each year sponsoring music events. C'mon guys, step up and contribute to our culture.

I'm hanging on for John Peels collection...

yeah heard about this a few months ago when he tried to auction it on eBay. sadly the highest bid was only something like $1m, and i think it was a fraud anyway. i hope he succeeds in finding a good home for it.

Yeah. I am sending kudos to this guy in hopes that it goes to the right person. Archive.com or even Google should buy it. The Googs could start it's own music vinyl page or something. They got the dirty benjy's to do it.

like PIMp says....  I WANT.

OR mog could do a Wolfgang's Vault deal with it.  But I like Charley's idea, keep it free!

My heart is breaking by sadness and anger.

this makes my collection seem so so small

Ever since I read this post it's been haunting my thoughts...I can't help but think there must be some way for all of us moggers to band together...ah, but it's not to be <tear>

Don't cry too much. This is all very foolish. He owns a record store. His collection contains some good records and a great deal of the usual used record store junk. It is not some sort of museum piece or archival collection. Trying to keep it together is ludicrous. What he should do is break it down into lots aimed at the various LP constituencies: 45rpm collectors, Elvis fanatics, '60s rock lovers, jazz collectors (etc.) and sell it off in lots, reserving the truly collectible records for separate auctions. 

Any truly knowledgeable collector would know to do this. And any truly knowledgeable collector would know that kids ARE buying records, DO understand their value (etc.). 

I don't know anyone who's spent as much time and effort as I have to try to 'save the LP', which has been saved, BTW, but I have very little sympathy for this guy because he's way too full of himself and his supposed "accomplishments." 

He's amassed a lot of records, that's for sure but he's overvalued many, including that Stones LP and he's deluded himself into thinking his collection is worth millions. It's not. When you try to sell LPs "en masse" like that, they are worth very little per LP. Only by breaking it down into smaller pieces can one derive value. 

The National Archives, this collection ain't, according to my sources who have perused it.

This guy has made his own vinyl bed, now he must lie in it. There were and are much better ways to sell off the records for his financial benefit but he's got to rid himself of the delusion that it's somehow worth keeping it together for history's sake, or for "posterity" or for whatever other reason he's created in his mind.

Well, I feel much better now.  Thanks for the reality check MF!

fremer, the guy still has a million records. a million records is a million records. how bad can the collection be?

It can be packed with a great deal of useless poundage--even a majority of useless stuff. The problem is: what do you do with such a collection were you to buy it? You really wouldn't want to own the whole thing, which must include how many hundred copies of "Fleetwood Mac" and thousands of copies of "The First Family," etc.? I could be wrong about that but I doubt it.  I once went to a garage sale advertising "1000s of records" and I drove a long way to get there and there were 1000s in mint condition but none I wanted. NOT A ONE! It was all Jerry Vale, Steve and Edie Gorme, Lawrence Welk and pop and easy listening from the 1950's collected by some old guy with middle of the road, mundane tastes. He was, in his own, smaller way, as obsessive as Mr. Record-Rama.  But there was not a record I wanted, or that almost anyone today wants and nothing I could buy and sell on Ebay even. With this huge collection, you'd pay a buck a piece or so for a collection where many records are probably worth a penny or a dime or minus $ because you'd have to transport and dump it and that costs money. No doubt there are some good records there but how many is the issue, and how many useless records, and how much to move and/or house and/or break up such a collection are the questions. The real solution would be to keep "Record-Rama" or whatever it's called open as a used record store. But even that's questionable because the inventory is probably too vast and too expensive to maintain for such an enterprise to make any money so again, you'd have to pay a lot of money to get a lot of worthless records and then spend a lot more to haul off the junk and find homes for it. Doesn't anyone else find it odd that in offering this collection, beyond the hype,  superlatives and pleas for sympathy, there are no facts such as how many original "deep groove" Blue Notes there are, or how many UK pressings from the '60s there are, or how many valuable r&b classics from the '50s there are? Or anything for that matter that might provide even the slightest clue as to the make-up of the collection? All we've been shown is an early '78 of very questionable value, an Elvis Christmas album, a Stones promo-only LP and a few others. And we're being asked to drop millions of dollars because the collector is a nice guy with health problems? Let's say there are a few thousand great albums among the millions. Who would pay millions for that and then have to pay more to ship and store so much ballast along with some possible great 'blasts from the past'? No one (obviously).  This guy needs to put up or shut up. Give potential buyers some idea of what's there with some degree of specificity. If the collection is organized that shouldn't be too difficult to do. I suspect it's not organized, which makes assessing what's there nearly impossible. Otherwise, why wouldn't he have done so and provided potential buyers with much needed information. I know many of the country's biggest players in the used LP buying and selling market and not a single one would touch this collection. Ask yourselves why?

@MFremer-

I can see why major players wouldn't do it without a list or because they don't want the balast. I would be interested in what folks who perused the collection said to make you say it isn't an archive..Clearly there are too many questions.  Hell I'll go catalog it for a small fee.

You are right..we need to see a list. I wonder how much it would cost to make one? I would like to see how it stacks up to the Library of Congress Archive. And yeah, after inspection they should buy it and digitize it.  I'd kick in a buck or two. 

On the one hand, he and the non-buyers may be looking at this as a commodity, but on the other hand an "archive of the mundane" if large enough could be a cultural touchstone.

To me it depends on what gaps it fills..I don't care about this and that promo copy that is worth so much individualy, but if entire label catalogs can be salvaged it's worth it for an institution to buy it.

Even if the collection was 95% "useless" that leaves 50,000 "useful" records and if each of those were worth $20 that'd be a million dollars..I wonder if that's how the one serious bid was figured.

I've been to the National Archives' record collection. They don't really need this one. They need to fill in some blanks....This needs to become a record store again. Hey! Let's open a record store!

i'll take all the steve and edie's!,

also, the tony orlandos & dawn

I'd like to get some Eddie Bo 45's.

Awesome! The 3 million dollar price tag keeps me away however.

The original music geek and his long suffering wife. God bless 'em both.

I'm in 100% agreement with Michael Fremer on all the points he made. You need an index/listing b/c sometimes when you go into purchasing any product for you need to know what the HECK you are investing $2.5 million on.

To tell you the HONEST truth when it comes to records, I am SHOCKED of the excellent selection of digital music over on www.emusic.com for I am discovering a lot of music I did not know existed but it is primiarly coming from the Smithsonian Recordings which I was totally unaware of and I AM FROM WASHINGTON, DC!!

Smithsonian Folkways

http://www.emusic.com/browse/b/b/-dbm/a/0-0/1011593147/0.html

However, the bad thing here is that the LINER notes are not included so this is when I would want access to the record to get the information.

Fortunately though, TA DA look what the Smithsonian does here:

http://www.folkways.si.edu/albumdetails.aspx?itemid=3011

You can download the liner notes from the website but I don't know why this is not offerred at emusic?! Just odd

I am in agreement too in opening a record store! I frequent Disc-O-Rama here in New York and have built my music collecion around their used music section and their new records which are affordable!

Thanks for sharing!

thanks for the input serenity!