Thursday, February 21, 2008

Sold!

3 million records for $3 million on EBay.



Record Rama collection fetches millions
Thursday, February 21, 2008

The sale of the famed Record Rama collection today was "bittersweet" for Paul Mawhinney, who is parting with what he calls "The World's Largest Music Collection.''

The high bidder on eBay came in at $3,002,150 for a collection Mr. Mawhinney estimated as being worth $50 million.

"It was a little bittersweet," said Mr. Mawhinney's agent, J. Paul Henderson. "We didn't get as much as we wanted."

Mr. Mawhinney, the 68-year-old owner of the Ross-based Record Rama, had been trying to sell the collection for years.

Faced with health problems, particularly his failing vision, Mr. Mawhinney decided to retire, close the store and put the collection on eBay this month for a minimum of $3 million. That averages about a dollar apiece for the vault of approximately 3 million LPs, 45s, CDs, cassettes and 8-tracks, plus his own patented vinyl-cleaning system and ownership of six publishing companies and eight independent labels. It is believed to be the second biggest sale in the history of eBay, after the sale of a $4.9 million private jet.

Not much is known yet about "jopsoup," the screen name of the Irish-based buyer, other than that he has 33 positive ratings and one negative in his eBay history.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Henderson was unsure whether the bid was legitimate, but said, "We have a plan B. We've heard from someone legitimate who wants to buy it."

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