Last Vinyl-Only Shop in Bay Area - Sponsors/Angels Needed

[diamone]

Sponsors/Angels Needed - Last Vinyl-Only Record Shop (no CD's or Tapes) in Bay Area retiring. Lots of people want to preserve it/continue the business in another location, but nobody in our normal contacts has either a large enough space to donate, or the funding to rent/buy one.

So we're trying to find a place to put a half-a million records we are getting ready to be given at the end of the summer. A long-time record store owner of the last surviving vinyl-only record shop in the Bay Area is retiring after 54 years and losing the building he's rented for the past umpteen years as well - as it is being torn down to make an office complex.

So a group of long-time customers are trying to find a/some Patron(s) of the Arts/Angel Sponsor(s) to be able to either borrow, rent or buy a building (like the one at 695 Arques in Sunnyvale - that has lain empty since the dot-com bust - that the elderly owner has been trying to rid himself of for years and years with no success) - or any other similar building.

If a home can't be found for the collection by the end of the summer - whether to continue on with the reselling and bringing it into the 21st century by going on eBay etc - or keep - then the remainders will suffer the same fate as the half-a-million 78's did -

i.e. thrown in the dumpster or being sold as clay pigeons to gun dealers - when he inherited the building in the first place from another record dealer (none of whom want the HUGE job of cataloguing and grading every single piece - and none of whom would pay even fire-sale prices for it.

And the same is true for the universities and other sorts of archives to which the collection could be donated if they would
A) want it in the first place and
B) have a place to put it in the second place.

But these places are all either restricting their services or else closing down entirely from lack of funding.

But I can round up PLENTY of vinyl-loving guys on the same disability as me to do the record moving and hauling and packing and unpacking and disassembly and reassembly of shelves and etc.

And after that - plenty of guys to do inventory, grade, price and photograph each title - and plenty of guys to do the eBay data entry - all for free just to have something to do all day long.

No there's no quad, half speeds color vinyl or any other audiophile formats - but the collection is still worthy of saving and continuing on - if we can find the space to put it - and the angel funding to continue to run the record shop business.

Plus - whoever it is will be contributing to easing the 90%+ unemployment
rate of people with disabilities who A) have abilities and B) the desire to work.

If space rent can be found - we have a handful of Disabled American Veterans who are on the payroll of a local Disability Sheltered Workshop who have nothing to do because all their General Assembly work got offshored - who would be more than willing to do all the grunt work required in
A) moving the records and shelves upon which they sit to the new location and reassemble (the now-empty General Assembly workshop has been offered relatively inexpensively)
B) learning how to catalog, grade and price records and
C) act as Internet researchers, customer service, shipping and receiving and sales agents.

Deadline when the building is being vacated - sometime after Labor Day.

P.S. I purposely left out the name and exact location of the record shop in question - although i did tell Steve E. and swore him to secrecy for the time being - who'll be able to vouch for the situation - since I myself am one of said disabled individuals needing work and would therefore not appreciate something or somebody taking it out from under me.

Your understanding is appreciated.

One project we CAN tell you where it is - and need some Angel Funding for at sometime in the future is:
Acquiring the two remaining Scully lathes at the American Printing House for the Blind in Louisville. They're in pieces, supposedly complete or very close thereto - and the 2B and 3B cutterheads included therewith were said to have still been operational when they were put into the museum showcase some ten or twelve years ago, along with the matching Scully 280 mastering decks.

Their main issue is not whether to get rid of it or not and/or see that it gets put back into production - but rather that they have something nice to sit in their huge display case.

Our thought was - since it's never touched by the public behind its' glass wall - whether we couldn't just mold the shape of one - with the extremely realistic silicones and other plastics and resins available today - have an artist paint it in the classic color scheme - and set that in their display showcase instead - and then liberate their lathes and various parts for whatever they want to sell them for.

So maybe you people on here have an idea how we can achieve either or both of these goals - and can re-post this to your own forums as well as to various other forums and venues to which you belong and see if you can come up with one or more angel sponsors for these projects.