Zero Freitas of São Paulo, Brazil, has built the largest record collection on the planet. The 65-year-old, who made his money running a transporation company, started his collection with a single record in 1965 and now has collected more than seven million. Until recently, most of his purchases were anonymous. He would place ads in Billboard magazine, saying he would buy any record collection. In fact, he bought the remaining stock of 200,000 records from Colony Records in New York’s Times Square after the store’s closure in 2012. The largest collection he acquired was in 2013, when he bought the record collection of Paul Mawhinney of Record-Rama, once thought to be the largest in the world. The collection of about three million records took eight semi-trailers to move. Frietas is currently building a warehouse to store his collection, which he plans to call Emporium Musical.
