A collector's dream is sitting in a Mitchell warehouse waiting for new home, as the National Film and Sound Archive prepare to offload 32,000 pieces of music and audio history.
Although, collecting enthusiasts will need to clear a lot of space to be part of the action as the items, collated over years, aren't up for grabs individually, rather they are being given away pallet by pallet.
The Archive is offloading about 32,000 collection items to free up space in their storage facilities.
About 8,000 78 RPM shellac records, 12,000 Master Touch piano rolls and 12,000 phonograph cylinders have been put up for tender.
NFSA head of collection Jacqui Uhlmann said staff had spent two years collating the items containing international material with many originally from the United States and United Kingdom.
It is the first time NFSA has got rid of such a huge amount of items - and you won't need to pay a cent if you want to get your hands on some of the haul.
"[These are items] deemed to be outside the scope of our collecting remit because it relates to international material, and obviously, our focus is about Australian audio-visual heritage" Ms Uhlmann said.
"It's not a revenue raising exercise."
Thousands of items have been acquired by the archives over decades including records through the 70s and 80s and Master Touch piano rolls collected when the company dissolved in 2005.
"The old pianola with the roll of paper that you play, [it was] quite a popular technology from the earlier part of the last century, when people didn't have Spotify and weren't able to download whatever they wanted," Ms Uhlmann said.
The wax or phonograph cylinders produced at the turn of the 20th century are a form of record used before disc records were created.
The items spread across 77 pallets will be sold on a per-pallet basis and contain audio content ranging from music to readings or speeches.
The tender is open to any member of the public, collector or organisation who has a use for them, but individual items aren't up for grabs.
"You've got to commit yourself to quite a lot," Ms Uhlmann said.
Eager collectors will have to take a pallet blindly as there isn't an itemised list for each one, however Ms Uhlmann said they could provide an indication of the period items were from.
Ms Uhlmann said most of the items weren't highly valuable but she expected some experts could find something special.
"For some people there really will be some gems in there, it just depends on what they're looking for," she said.
The items aren't for sale, rather, the tender will be decided based on how the items will be used.
"[Public] access would be really important ... and how what they're proposing to do would fit within that," she said.
"The other things we're going to be looking at is the nature of the organisation, or the people who are wanting it, how many pallets they might be taking, but also are [they] actually able to remove these things - moving a pallet is hard."
The tender is open for responses until June 25.
