WILMINGTON, Del. — After a lengthy auction stretching over two days, a federal bankruptcy judge yesterday approved the sale of California-based Tower Records to Great American Group, which plans to liquidate the music retailer.

Liquidation sales will begin this weekend at Tower's 89 stores in 20 states and all of them will probably close by the end of the year, Tom Pabst, chief administrative officer for Los Angeles-based Great American, said yesterday. Tower's 3,000 employees will lose their jobs, he said. "We're very excited about giving Tower customers one last hurrah," Pabst said.

After almost 30 hours of what attorneys described as "robust" and "vigorous" bidding, Great American won with a bid of $134.3 million, beating Trans World Entertainment, which had hoped to continue operating at least some Tower stores, by a single bid increment of $500,000.

"This is not an easy decision," said bankruptcy Judge Brendan Shannon, who nevertheless noted that the Tower debtors and other parties had agreed the bidding process was conducted fairly and in good faith.

Tower Records, which owes creditors about $200 million, filed for Chapter 11 reorganization in August. In its filing, the company said it has been hurt by an industrywide decline in music sales, downloading of online music and competition from big-box stores such as Wal-Mart. Tower has three stores on O'ahu.

Tower's Chapter 11 filing came two years after initial reorganization that resulted in bondholders forgiving millions of dollars in debt but taking an 85 percent stake in the company, leaving founder Russ Solomon and his family with 15 percent.

Solomon founded Tower in Sacramento, Calif., in 1960, starting by selling records out of his father's drug store and eventually opening the company's landmark store on Hollywood's Sunset Boulevard in 1969. As part of the bankruptcy auction, the Sunset property will be sold for $12 million.

Michael Bloom, an attorney representing Tower's secured trade creditors, urged Shannon to consider the closeness of the bids and the effect that liquidation would have before deciding whether to approve the sale.

"We can save this company or we can liquidate it," Bloom argued. "... Sometimes, the highest bid is not the best bid. In this case, your honor, we believe the best bid is the Trans World bid."

Trans World, which has about 1,100 mostly mall-based stores nationwide, has recently acquired other music retailers such as Sam Goody and Wherehouse Music, consolidating most of its acquisitions under the FYE name, which stands for For Your Entertainment.

Tim Pohl, an attorney representing Trans World, asked the judge whether $500,000 was "a material enough difference" to liquidate a company, as opposed to keeping thousands of people employed.

But Jay Indyke, an attorney for Great American, said Trans World and its bidding partners had discussed liquidating inventory and closing about two dozen Tower stores, and that they would not say how many stores they would continue to operate.