And so the rich get richer.

Big Al

Over on Facebook I just posted a collage of NY concert announcements printed on postcards from the 1990s. That is how we learned of music events in the city pre-internet. Most people have thrown them away, but I am a packrat.

Commenters think I should donate them to a cultural institution, as historical artifacts. Or maybe I should establish a museum in my basement, with very limited public access, and take a big tax write off.

This was an interesting read and I have a much different takeaway because I'm currently volunteering for a museum/collection that is basically exactly like this. It's a collection of vintage music gear that was amassed by a pretty wealthy guy and it's held under a non-profit so I'd imagine there were some kind of tax breaks involved. It is housed in one of his warehouses -- he owns (and works at every day) a blue-collar-type manufacturing and distribution company that generates all his income. We have been giving free tours of the place for years to interested people who contact us but usually that means at most 2-3 groups a week come through.

Now we are currently trying to figure out how to become a "real museum" and the obstacles listed in this article are real -- the township is all up in our grill about zoning stuff (we aren't zoned for general public access, we don't have enough parking, we aren't allowed to hold events or concerts etc etc). We can't just open the doors and let people wander through because there's literally millions of dollars of musical equipment and none of it is behind glass - it would be so easy for someone to pocket a knob off a synth etc - so all tours must be guided by volunteers and kept to a small enough group that one person can keep an eye on everyone. The owner puts his money into the gear and hadn't initially designed the place as a museum so while there's a good security system in the building, there isn't a camera on every single thing and a guard watching all the video feeds 24/7. And there's only a few volunteers - not enough to keep the doors open for the general public on a regular schedule. There's only one paid employee, two 3-day-a-week volunteers (one of which is me and one of which is the owner's son) and then a couple other people that come in once in a while to help out. We don't have cleaning staff or maintenance - the one paid employee (with the title executive director) scrubs the toilets every Friday. The owner has his hands full just paying the electric bill on the place (which runs 4K a month!) and doesn't have the cash flow to pay more people or install fancy displays and cameras everywhere -- his business was severely impacted by covid and has yet to fully recover....so he's not exactly hurting but he's not "let's buy the neighbor's 160 million dollar mansion on a whim" wealthy either.

So anyway, as someone with an insider view into what it takes to amass a private collection and give tours to people on a limited basis, it really is a labor of love (with I guess possibly the added bonus of tax breaks)....but opening the doors to the public it isn't as straightforward as this article makes it out to be.

Thanks for that perspective, Lisa.

Big Al