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-------------------------------------------------- From: "Tom Fine" <[log in to unmask]> > The big problem I read from the somewhat poorly-written newspaper story is > that the collection is large and mostly common reissue LPs. So it has > little value, even to scholars. This sounds like 450 boxes of mostly > dollar-bin records. The university seems to have made a correct decision, > given limited resources and time. > It DID seem to be reissue LP's of 78-era recordings; however, these are not always "common!" I used to own (long story) a couple hundred British reissue LP's of vintage 78's (another chap used to buy them from UK dealers and tape them, and then sold them to me for VERY low prices...!)! I couldn't have afforded either the purchase of the original 78's or the huge cost of shipping them to Canada...so I happily accumulated the LP's! I suspect the chap who "stole" my LP's (gave about $100 for a thousand LP's plus the industrial steel shelf unit on which I stored them...?!) had no idea where to sell those albums...?! > The lesson here for people on this list -- an accumulation of numbers is > not a collection in the useful sense. Careful culling and careful > selection of what makes up your collection makes it valuable and > worthwhile. A huge pile of disorganized and common old records is not of > much use to anyone. Also, as time goes on, condition matters more and > more. If you've cared for your collection, it will be of more value to > someone other than you. > As I read it, the original collector of the LP's did so because he was specifically looking for 78-era recordings, but didn't want the "hassle" of assembling a quality 78 player...?! It would have been much easier to accumulate LP reissue albums of the vintage original recordings, for which players are/were easier to acquire...?! > > All of this is hard to hear by some old guy who's spent years > accumulating, but it's how it is today -- and frankly how it's been ever > thus. I'm hoping that academia and other endowed repositories are > concluding that numbers don't matter, it's quality and focus that matters > in a collection. Much better to have a little pail of golden wheat than a > silo of chaffe. > As I already commented, university-level music departments almost all view "pop music" as beneath them?! Would it have been more likely to have been kept if it were an equally large collection of CLASSICAL LP's?! One wonders...?! Steven C. Barr