[78-L] largest record collection (in Pittsburgh)

[Anthony G Pavick]

I can only speak from having been a customer of his when he was 
located above the post office on McKnight Road in Ross Township, a 
suburb of Pittsburgh. In the early 1990s, his pricing model on 
'garden variety' elpees from his stock was a base of $5 and then $1 
for very year old it was. Therefore a copy of the 1964 Pat Boone 
album Days of Wine and Roses would set you back 31 smackers in 1990. 
I have to wonder if this thought process account for his overblown valuation.

Has there ever been an independent valuation of what he has? I have 
never heard of one.

While I have no problem with him selling promos as such, I do have a 
problem with him selling records bought for the business at wholesale 
as if they were his, when in fact Record Rama, the business, is the 
actual owner. Granted, he owned the business, but it just doesn't sit 
right with me. And as I said, I have issues with him selling CD-Rs of 
out of print titles and can't imagine why the RIAA doesn't go after 
him rather than a person who swapped a few mp3s.

He has a certain grandeous style about him, as indicated via his 
varous products such as the Spin Clean, a K Tel/ Ronco type product 
(http://www.spincleanrecordwasher.com/about.html) and his MusicMaster 
directory that he claimed to list every effing record ever released. 
His boisterous nature, a la Senator Claghorn from Allen's Alley, got 
old really fast.

Every CD he sold had a 1 inch square yellow price/ advertising 
sticker on the jewel case that could not be removed as the adhesive 
was so strong. I still have CDs with the bloody thing firmly stuck. 
This may seem piddly, but it seems that he loved the business more 
than the actual music.

He hawked over priced record sleeves, over priced because he took 
bog-standard ones and printed a box on them to write when you bought 
the record, when it was issued, etc. Now here's where it gets 
interesting, especially in light of selling of CD-Rs of elpees. In 
1977 he sued Record Source International, Billboard, and Bowers 
Sleeve over copyright violations when they produced a similar product.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1144&dat=19771012&id=RiYcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=6lcEAAAAIBAJ&pg=4389,5665703

T