$2,400,000 for Who

[Patrick]

while i was surfing the internet i fond something maybe nice to know

The Who are a rock and roll band that, over the years, have earned many best selling and critically acclaimed albums, celebrity-status amongst the band members, and legions of dedicated fans. However, The Who only have room for one number one fan, and if you act fast that fan can be you!

"WhiteFang," the editor of WhiteFang's Who Site is auctioning off more than 3100 Who items on eBay. Now's your chance, ladies and gentlemen - for a meager $2,400,000 (US Dollars) starting bid (keep in mind that the reserve is not met with such a dainty bid, so you'll have to bid even higher) you can become The Who's biggest (and subsequently poorest) fan.

WhiteFang isn't clear on his site about the reason why s/he's selling the collection (the obvious reason would either be money or to buy the entire collection of Mike and the Mechanics with $2,395,000 left over) but it is made clear that the collection must be sold as one set and not broken up. Rather than talking to WhiteFang him/herself for answers, I sat down with Doctor of Musicology, Dr. Jon Kronser.

"For that price, [WhiteFang's Who Collection] better come with Keith Moon's skull and a room in Pete [Townshend's] mansion."

Well, it may not be an all inclusive collection, but it does contain over 2400 Records/CDs, 59 Videos, 84 Posters, 35 Tourbooks/Programs, 44 Books, 154 Magazines, 61 Pieces of Sheet Music, 197 Ads, and some miscellaneous paper goods.

Now, let's assume each Record/CD is 30 minutes long, each video is 90 minutes long, each magazine/tourbook/program takes 1 hour to read, each ad/poster takes 30 seconds to appreciate and each book takes 6 hours to read. Those sound like conservative estimates, right? Well, it would take you over 72 Days (1743 hours at $1376.27 per hour) to let that Who collection really sink in. That doesn't include the time it would take to learn how to play the guitar to get the full mileage out of your Who sheet music.

Not to be forgotten about in this "Who auction to beat all Who auctions" is the fact that you'll be landing yourself a job that pays jack squat. The winner of the great Who auction must agree to manage the aforementioned WhiteFang's Who Site. No one said that becoming The Who's number one fan would be easy.

What else could a fan of The Who buy for $2,400,000?
Every single studio and live album by The Who on CD over 7500 times.


Approximately 20,000 tickets to The Who's August 9th concert at the Hollywood Bowl (one for you and 19,999 of your closest friends).


2,424,242 song downloads of The Who from iTunes Music Store.


126,649 T-shirts of The Who, or 241,206 keychains featuring The Who logo.


137,221 Hours with a prostitute in Singapore's Flanders Square. That's more than 15 and a half years worth of 24-hour days! If you don't want to pay for sex while you're sleeping then you can stretch it out a hell of a lot more time.
Spend the money on the 3100 item collection of The Who, or spend it on 15-1/2 years of dirty sex in Singapore. Either way you're getting f**ked

from www.loveiswonderful.com/articles/kevin_075

[boniemaronie]

i know where i would love to shove that mans collection, and im sure there would be who fans all over the world willing to pay me a million dollars for the experience

[balloony]

There was a thread on here last year about his auction,I take it there hasn't been any bids for the collection yet ;D

By his estimation then my humble little collection of CDs & LPs must be worth a couple of grand

[Ineedanewname]

boniemaronie said:

i know where i would love to shove that mans collection, and im sure there would be who fans all over the world willing to pay me a million dollars for the experience

There's defintely a queue for that. Make yerself some money while you're at it Bonie, sell tickets for the event.

I think the reason this stuff hasn't sold after being on the market for a year or so is that he's priced the collection based on what he spent collecting it. If he wanted something he'd pay top dollar for it because he had the finances to do so. That style of buying tends to artificially inflate prices....over the artifical inflation already rife within the record collecting market. And auctions? Even worse. It only takes one other bidder to knock something up way past it's true value. Logic decrees that if you've been consistantly buying in this manner, when it comes to selling your purchases en masse you're probably gonna take a huge loss.

[Jeroen]

I don't like this Whitefang dude one bit. He's obsessive about The Who, builds the biggest collection ever, and then tries to get rich by selling out over the back of his life's passion and work. It's a very contradictory story, and makes me uncertain whether the man is 100% OK up in the control room.

Not to mention the fact that he thinks It's Hard is a good Who album. His web site comes in handy once in a while, though...

[balloony]

He must be utterly delusional if he thinks that anyone would be prepared to pay nearly 2 and a half million dollars for a collection of records,CDs, posters and the like

[Ineedanewname]

I think the days are gone when such collections are automatically snapped up. Before the advent of the Internet such a deal would be a once in a lifetime chance to get that material. To collate it yourself piece by piece would have taken a number of years and a lot of luck. Now with the Internet, you know you can find pretty much find all you want (eventually) with a few mouse clicks. If you have that kind of money you can build an equal collection in a number of months, no problem.

[freditor]

jeroenk said:

I don't like this Whitefang dude one bit.... Not to mention the fact that he thinks It's Hard is a good Who album....

I've chatted with him on a few topics on PT's chat board and he seemed fair and never came off as a "know-it-all". It seemed he got flamed quite a bit from what I remember. To be fair though, I'm sure he has put in loads of hours reviewing WHO material and he even states his reviews are subjective.

$2.4 million does seem ridiculous but then again, some might say that over $5K (US) for the new PT Signature Gibson Les Paul Deluxe is crazy... but I bought one.

FWIW..... I like "It's Hard" also. ;D

[JillKristen]

If I remember correctly I thought he was asking $5,000,000 for his stuff on ebay last year. He seems to have come down quite a bit...must be hitting on desperate times!

JK

[Patrick]

the last time i sawe it on ebay you could place a bid of 2,500,000 or buy it now: 5,000,000 dollar

[boniemaronie]

I've chatted with him on a few topics on PT's chat board and he seemed fair and never came off as a "know-it-all". It seemed he got flamed quite a bit from what I remember. To be fair though, I'm sure he has put in loads of hours reviewing WHO material and he even states his reviews are subjective.

this one richard wiener is the sole culprit of petes originalfirst chatboardf being shut down, he seems to have an obsession about having the biggest and best who collection, and anyone else is some kind of untermenshcen or low life because they are also who fans. basically he needs a life

[Patrick]

Thats right Bonie!
Is that guy miljonair?? that guy hase also a nice car collection.
Maybe thats also in the price of the collection ;D

[balloony]

boniemaronie said:

this one richard wiener is the sole culprit of petes originalfirst chatboardf being shut down, he seems to have an obsession about having the biggest and best who collection, and anyone else is some kind of untermenshcen or low life because they are also who fans. basically he needs a life

Why what did he do?

[Ineedanewname]

From what I can gather he was bitching constantly about the re-issues and personally contacting people involved, using derogatory terminology and suchlike, dragging it out across Pete's chat forum.

Here's one response to Whitefang's actions which Pete placed on his chatboard:

"Jon Astley's name is Jon Astley. It is not the other name. My dear father-in-law bore the name Astley, as did my wife before I married her. I do not wish to see that name sullied in this way on my own web-site. White Fang's name is Richard Weiner. We all know who needs friends here Rich. It's you. And we are trying hard to stay with you in this ongoing s**t-stream you are creating over issues that I think just do not matter very much. What matters is when love (for The Who) turns into hate (White Fang for Jon Astley). I don't want my web-site to be a part of that.

I don't think credits are being 'stolen' here by anyone. I think controversy is being stirred up in my chat room over something that should be dealt with privately. I have not had any complaints from Tim Young about his credits on the reissues. I had one complaint in 1996 from Andy about his Quadrophenia remixing role when I did interviews and said that Jon Astley had done a great job. Andy called me and said that although Jon was involved, Andy had done a lot of remixing alone. Jon (and myself, Pete Townshend) merely approved it on certain tracks.

However, approval is part of the production process, and I have approved all credits thus far. Jon Astley is not responsible for the credits on the reissues.

One other matter. In this chat room we are not going to resort to censorship. However, we will not allow Rich Weiner's version of the 'truth' to obscure what is really going on here. I think RW alias White Fang is a man looking for attention. I know what it's like to crave attention. I get it by making my work available for criticism and evaluation. Rich Weiner, please try and offer us all something with love for a change. Then you will earn our respect, and really get our attention.

PT"

Following the closure of the chatroom Pete placed a message up, which contained this little explanatory gem:

"The truth is that sadly the chat room was closed by Matt because he couldn't handle White Fang on a daily basis. I too found this person insufferable, boring in his persistence to get things done his way. (His main obsession is with the quality of Who remasters). When frustrated he resorted to public insults directed at my brother-in-law and my P.A. I can handle it, but I felt it wasn't fair to drag in anyone else. Matt felt the only way to handle things was to keep the chat room closed."

You can find more info about this matter if you search alt.music.who. What I found most revealing when reading through those archive posts was the way some of his responses to comments on the issue come across as being rather proud and bloated with self-importance. I got the impression that he was smugly basking in the glow of achievement because for that short moment he was in the eye of Townshend.

[freditor]

WOW.... ...thanks for the info Evil.

I remember the PT board closing twice (one being the current) was there another closing prior? I don't remember any of this, but I was not (logged) on it much so I sure I missed all this. I recall debating him on the compression technique used in making CD's, where I was referring to the actual codec (code/decode) of CD's, and he was referring about the actual compression sound engineer's use.

[COLTOM]

wow - that's an eye opener. Frankly this guy should have been an Elvis fan - his obsessive-compulsive style of hero worship would fit in perfectly in Memphis.

[Jeroen]

This guy's a joke. His idea of ultimate Who fandom is trying to p**s off Pete Townshend. I'd almost call it sickening.

Pete shouldn't have wasted one word on the bloke.

[Ian]

Man,that is certainly some read!.......Nutjob!.......Alot like A.J Weberman....the guy who liked to sort through Dylan's garbage.It got so unbearable for Dylan,he was quoted to say"A.J I'm not Bob Dylan.....you are!......".....Just plain weird!

[Jeroen]

poggy said:

It got so unbearable for Dylan,he was quoted to say"A.J I'm not Bob Dylan.....you are!......"

Now that's a cool way to put it.

[finky]

I Blame that pesky fish Murray Cod for getting the board shut down last time. I bet matt couldnt handle Murrays Cod Like ways!

[shessocold]

finky said:

I Blame that pesky fish Murray Cod for getting the board shut down last time. I bet matt couldnt handle Murrays Cod Like ways!

Oh yeah? Well I heard it was ALL YOUR FAULT, lady!

;D

[finky]

Who told you that? now Im in big trouble-The Secret is out-I guess Matt couldnt handle me screwing with his mind-come to think of it I couldnt handle me screwing with my own mind! mwahahahaaa ;D

[JillKristen]

jeroenk said:

This guy's a joke. His idea of ultimate Who fandom is trying to p**s off Pete Townshend. I'd almost call it sickening.

Pete shouldn't have wasted one word on the bloke.

I agree, but what is ironic is that he did get the individual attention (be that it was negative attention) from Pete.

JK

[boniemaronie]

I remember the PT board closing twice (one being the current) was there another closing prior?
yes freditor this was mark 1 was way back in about 99/00 very popular it was too. the only other live chat room was at hypertext who. boy that one was fun

[finky]

I hope this place is fun for you too or are you being an old chat board snob? ;D

[Jeroen]

jillkristen said:

I agree, but what is ironic is that he did get the individual attention (be that it was negative attention) from Pete.

JK

It's almost a rule of thumb in life. Negativity is rewarded sooner than a positive attitude. This WhiteFang dude is living proof. Someone like Pete Townshend almost directly addressing someone like WhiteFang is one big but undeniable contradiction.

[Hammersmith]

What gets me about Whitefang is that even though
his collection is for sale, he keeps buying and buying
more stuff - I check out his "new" section quite often.
And man what a bootleg collection - all originals too!

He also takes credit for having "Cinnamin Girl" added
to John's "Smash Your Head Against The Wall"
remastered cd.

I actually enjoy visiting his site quite often. Lots of
good Who info there.