Journalist Mikal Gilmore's massive record collection to be sold online

If you love to flip through vinyl LPs at the record store, mark your calendar – a large collection is about to become available to peruse and purchase.

Online music marketplace and discography platform Discogs on Friday, July 17, will begin selling the massive personal music collection of acclaimed journalist and author Mikal Gilmore.

Gilmore, who spent five decades writing for Rolling Stone, has amassed a collection of more than 30,000 items including many original and first pressings, along with "hundreds of promotional copies, advance releases, test pressings, press kits, and other pieces of music history," according to a news release announcing the sale.

The first 1,000 items go on sale Friday, July 17, on the Discogs website and mobile app at 3 p.m. ET/noon PT. Among the items up for sale Friday are first pressings of Joni Mitchell's "Blue," and David Bowie's "The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars." There's also test pressings of Bad Brains' "Rock for Light" and New Order's "Movement."

"Mikal Gilmore's archive is one of the largest and best collections we've ever had the privilege to handle," said Lance Barresi, owner of L.A.'s Permanent Records, in the news release. Permanent Records is assisting Discogs in the sale.

"The condition is immaculate and the amount of ephemera included is mind-blowing," Barresi said. "There are more promos and press kits in these 17,000-plus records than we've ever seen before in one collection. The personalized notes from some of the people that sent these records to Mikal are beautifully heartwarming, too. Mikal took great care of his records and we're honored to help find them new homes."

What is available on Discogs?

Discogs has millions of records, CDs, tapes and videos available from independent sellers. Buyers and sellers can also list their collections in the Discogs database.

Collecting vinyl records is a growing obsession for some, while at the same time sales of new vinyl albums grew for the 19th consecutive year, increasing 9.3% in 2025, according to the Recording Industry Association of America. Sales surpassed $1 billion for the first time in decades – and vinyl continues to outsell music CDs.

Discogs expects plenty of interest in the sale of Gilmore's collection after the recent first online drop of 1,000 records from the collection of the late Television frontman Tom Verlaine sold out in less than six hours on June 26. Discogs will have another drop from Verlaine's collection on July 31 (each purchase comes with a certificate of authenticity verifying that the record came from Verlaine's personal collection).

In Gilmore's collection, in addition to the Bad Brains and New Order test pressings, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie first pressings, there's a first pressing of Descendents' "Milo Goes to College" (1982), a promotional copy of Alice In Chains' 1990 "We Die Young" EP and a copy of Bowie's 1977 album "Low," with original promotional materials.

During his time at Rolling Stone, Gilmore interviewed and reported on artists such as Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Patti Smith, Mick Jagger, Neil Young, Tom Waits, Leonard Cohen, David Bowie and others.

In addition to jobs as music editor for LA Weekly and the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, Gilmore has written books on music, culture and, in the 1994 book "Shot in the Heart" wrote about his family and brother Gary Gilmore, who was executed by firing squad in 1977 after admitting to two murders in Utah.

Gilmore, who declined comment on the sale, continues to write on his "Night Beat" Substack. In a post from January 2026, he wrote how his collection of about 20,000 vinyl records and another 20,000 CDs – and thousands more albums on hard drives and in the cloud – "became a problem."

Much of the collection reflects the assemblage of artists Gilmore profiled as part of his work, "giving collectors the rare opportunity to own records connected not only to the artists themselves, but to one of the journalists who helped shape how generations experienced their work," according to Discogs.

Mike Snider is a national trending news reporter for USA TODAY. You can follow him on Threads, Bluesky, X and email him at mikegsnider & @mikegsnider.bsky.social & @mikesnider & msnider@usatoday.com.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Journalist Mikal Gilmore's massive record collection to be sold online

Reporting by Mike Snider, USA TODAY / USA TODAY

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This story was originally published July 13, 2026 at 11:20 AM.