"Maybe an institution would love to house this big collection..."

[lomemumu]

This suggestion was made in the discussion (in eBay & Craigslist Alerts) regarding a huge free record collection.

Some people with large collections think about donating the collection to a museum...

Here an anecdote hopefully some people know already:

A gentleman, lets call him Gerald, had a long musical association with HMV and privately build up perhaps the best collection of early recordings. He was getting on in years, and thought to donate his spectacular collection to a museum. He began to investigate the possibilities:

EXPECTATION
Oh Mr Gerald, we cannot thank you enough for this amazing bequest. Is it OK if we engage the UK's leading sculptor to visit you so that he can make a life size bronze statue of you that we can place on a plinth in front of our museum?

REALITY
OK, but how much will you pay us annually for storage and curation?

unfortunately this was the gist of all approaches to major museums.

So Gerald was mightily miffed - and this is where my admiration for him goes out the window - and he allegedly proceeded over time, on all occasions when he took his little boat out onto a nearby lake, to take a pile of records with him. These he would break and throw overboard.

I think that we all know that the knowledge and best preservation regarding our hobby is not with museums, but with individual collectors

[Inigo]

what a pity

[marcapra]

There is a true story that happened in southern California about a man who had some player pianos and other collectibles, as well as a huge collection of Edison DDs. He was an old man who could not pay the rent anymore, so he was evicted. A crew came in to remove the items and try to sell anything of value. The crew thought the DDs were of no value and went straight to the dumpster!

[gramophoneshane]

If they're going to be dumped, why not dump them at a couple different charity stores?
Much better than breaking them and throwing in the sea.

He may even have luck with some of the smaller regional museums, who would probably appreciate them more than bigger places who are more interested in biplanes and dinosaur bones.
I'm giving most of my collection to the local museum in the small town where I live, so about 40 machines, 10,000 records, 8-900 cylinders etc, and they're planning to erect a new building to house it all.

I would be such a shame to see these records destroyed without at least giving them a chance to be appreciated.
At least through an op shop they'll get looked through by people, and anything of interest will be saved, and the charity can make a couple of dollars out of it too.

[edisonplayer]

Is there any opera recordings?If there was a copy of Columbia Flag label 65035-D by Ulysses Lappas which accidentally broke I'd love it. edisonplayer.

[gramophoneshane]

Is there any opera recordings?If there was a copy of Columbia Flag label 65035-D by Ulysses Lappas which accidentally broke I'd love it. edisonplayer.

I doubt any owner of someones disused record collection is going to look through 5-10,000 records to see if one title is there lol.
Why not go and pick up the entire free collection and look for yourself?

I'm sure every one of us here has at least one record we're looking for, but to make requests for one or a handful of titles from a collection in this situation is just rediculous.

[drh]

Um, as I read the original post, it's not a case of "he's doing it, please stop him, I wonder if he has record X that I've been wanting for years"; it's a case of "this all happened long ago and is over now." Not a happy tale, and I don't know about the dumping in the lake part, but the bit about "pay us to take them" sounds right on. From what I've heard, institutions generally are not willing to take large collections of records without an endowment to cover their upkeep. I think many won't take them even then, or if they do they will just stick them in their next benefit sale and then toss whatever doesn't sell. Records that *do* get accepted are likely to disappear onto shelves in the basement, never to be played again.

I have a friend who used to work in one of the big institutions. He says that he would never consider leaving his records to one; private collectors are the best hope for their survival. Years ago, another friend (alas, now deceased--he was a good bit older than I am) who had a fine collection of operatic 78s, assembled over the course of decades, decided the time had come to dispose of them. He could find only one institution in the United States, the University of Missouri at Kansas City, that was willing to have anything to do with them. That was years ago; I have no idea if even that one would be interested in such things now.

And oh, by the way, I recently was in touch with a well-known record dealer in hopes of disposing of a huge lot of vocal/operatic LPs that had come my way as part of a collection. He had no interest in even looking at them and told me that vocal LPs are unsaleable.

[marcapra]

yes, DRH is right! The guy who said that he's giving his huge collection to a local museum who will build a building to house them is dreaming. What I've heard about museums is some will take your stuff and house it for a couple of years. After two years, they can sell it or dump it or give it away.

[gramophoneshane]

yes, DRH is right! The guy who said that he's giving his huge collection to a local museum who will build a building to house them is dreaming.

That was me and I can assure you I'm not dreaming.
The plan is to apply for a government grant to build it, and if that isn't approved, which it should be, one of the other committee members has said he will personally pay for the new building.
I'm also giving them my piano and push up piano player, plus all my radios and radiograms.
I should imagine it will take about a year to construct the place and set it up, but once it's there it will stay there, and will hopefully be used as an educational tool for school tours etc about the history of recorded music.
I'm certainly not dreaming lol.

[ddamico361]

I worked at a living history museum for eight years whose focus is the 19th century. As some have said, things are donated with the intention of being displayed. The hole to their thinking is that the donations are neither period appropriate or even have any historic precedence in even being there. Not all museums are the same. I was contacted by the curator a few years ago to find out if I'd be interested in early 20th century metal type (I have my own printing press). Even though someone had donated it, the type had no place in their collection. I took it with a smile!
There is a "wireless museum" in a nearby village which houses all manner of radios from their inception to modern times. Even though it's audio, I am doubtful they'd even display phonographs. However, there is a railroad museum not too far from me which has the most detailed HO scale dioramas of historic trains. Yet they also have a lot of fire fighting memorabilia there. Go figure.

Museums are a mixed bag. Each has its rules and needs. It's not their responsibility to take what you have even if it's historic or valuable.

David Damico
LeRoy, NY