Video collecting

[FAT$TACKS]

I don't know who all here collect videos, but I know a few of us do.

What's going on with the prices of VHS and Betamax as of late? It's getting insane. Sealed tapes are starting to go for stupid prices if they are anything with a following.

Worse than that, the grading craze has hit and sadly I'm seeing graded videos sell for prices that make no sense to me.

I'm seriously thinking about dumping all my sealed and rare stuff onto the market as over the years I mostly collected because it was fun and cheap. Most of the fun is being sapped out of it, the same way that happened to video game collecting.

Just check some of this ebay shit out. All Betemax, as that is mostly what I collect.


Graded! Also, not that great of a movie, in my opinion.

Electric Dreams

These sold best offer so we don't really know what they went for.

Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo Sealed Betamax Beta New Blackspoitation | eBay

<p>Breakin 2 Electric Boogaloo Sealed Betamax Beta New Blackspoitation. </p><br /><p>This is a sealed beta tape you can see the sticker at the bottom.</p><br /><p>Super rare find!</p>

www.ebay.com

E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial BETAMAX Not VHS 1st Press FACTORY SEALED W/WATERMARKS | eBay

<p dir="ltr" style="margin-top:0; margin-bottom:0;">E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial BETAMAX Not VHS 1st Press FACTORY SEALED W/WATERMARKS. Condition is BRAND NEW. FREE Shipping with USPS Priority Mail with insurance. But I can't guarantee it will arrive in the time they say due to covid ect. Tape is...

www.ebay.com

These were actual auctions.

King Kong - BETAMAX TAPE - FACTORY SEALED - this is not a VHS tape | eBay

Grading is visual unless otherwise indicated.

www.ebay.com

Godzilla VS. Mothra - BETAMAX TAPE - FACTORY SEALED - this is not a VHS tape | eBay

The is a very small hole in the shrink wrap and gouge mark on the front of the box [see picture]. Grading is visual unless otherwise indicated.

www.ebay.com

Indiana Jones Temple of Doom 1986 Betamax Beta Tape (not VHS) Sealed | eBay

Will have more in the coming weeks.

www.ebay.com

Now my take on video collecting.

There are basically two reasons for collecting old video media formats.

The first being for the container and the second being for the content. There are just some things that never got a better release than they did on some of these dead formats. Usually, that is one of the main reasons to collect Laserdisc releases. I've several VHS releases that never came out on another format. None of the stuff I see selling is like that. Every one of the things I see getting big prices is something that has been released in better quality on a newer format, so I think collecting for content is not what is going on.

I totally get wanting to have your favorite movie on older formats, just to have it. A big part of the attraction to that was that for the most part, it was a super cheap kind of slice of the past. I wonder how many of the people who are pushing the prices up, actually have the equipment to play the stuff. I've not been seeing a spike in the prices of players really.

While I will get sealed movies if they are cheap, I personally like ex-rentals, with stickers and wear on them, stuff that looks like it just came out of the video store.

The whole thing just seems kind of odd to me. It's great that my collection seems to be worth something now, but kind of sad and stupid at the same time.

Maybe someone will develop some kind of video tape everdrive or something that we can just load our movie roms onto . . . Wait a second!

 

[tbone3969!]

Anything retro is going up. Especially mint or sealed copies. I doubt this is for the content, like you said. Do you have a copy of 200 Motels? Always wanted that on VHS as it was never released on DVD to my knowledge. Love me some classic Zappa. Oh and I always liked the "big box" VHS tapes. Cool art on some of them for sure.

 

[voltronbadass]

Sounds like the hertiage auctions and the pricing not really matching whats rare anymore in the videogame market.

Seems to be the way collecting anything is going.

 

[pixeljunkie]

Translation: we have too much food

 

[theMot]

Master Tasuke would have had a lot to contribute here.

 

[Azra113]

Master Tasuke would have had a lot to contribute here.

yeah he was a real `pioneer`

 

[Lagduf]

Anything retro is going up. Especially mint or sealed copies. I doubt this is for the content, like you said. Do you have a copy of 200 Motels? Always wanted that on VHS as it was never released on DVD to my knowledge. Love me some classic Zappa. Oh and I always liked the "big box" VHS tapes. Cool art on some of them for sure.

Yeah anything retro and tech is going up in price. Everyone who didn’t dumpster all the old formats realizes they can make a buck or two.

People even trying to get top dollar on busted oscilloscopes on eBay.

 

[NeoSneth]

Cassette tapes are collectible now....so anything tape related is going up.
This is a small bump IMO. people will go back to throwing this stuff away soon enough. Tapes are not the next Vinyl.

Laserdisc prices continue to be rock bottom. Could always switch it up to the superior format.

 

[ChuChu Flamingo]

Too much money being printed, inflation, and people wanting to park money into something they think is stonks.

 

[Burning Fight!!]

Laserdiscs still being unwanted even with retards hyping up every possible piece of plastic from 40 years ago is hilarious

 

[norton9478]

Blu Ray (and also DVD-A) is severely underrated (even though some titles can get rather expensive).

The sound fidelity of some of some of this 5.1 stuff is so amazing. Not just for the 3D atmosphere and staging but for the different channels for the different speaker types.

Even the high rez stereo DVD/Blu-Ray stuff is great to boot.

 

[norton9478]

Laserdiscs still being unwanted even with retards hyping up every possible piece of plastic from 40 years ago is hilarious

People like the Laserdiscs for the covers. Especially "The Wall". People like the Film cover more than the album cover.

 

[Ralfakick]

Whenever the movie Electric Dreams is mentioned this song pops into my head, thanks for that Our local Philly 80s cable channel Prism played a lot of B Tier movies, I know I watched that on that one.

From someone that doesn’t play anything below a DVD in a bluray player now, are these mostly played on CRTs or newer TVs? How is a BetaMax or VHS even connected to a newer TV? Do you use an upscailer?

 

[FAT$TACKS]

Do you have a copy of 200 Motels?

I don't think so.

So when it comes to me collecting.


Most movies I really enjoy, I have a Blu-ray copy of. As for watching the older formats, I usually do that on an old 36" Sony Trinitron.

Basically, it goes like this.

CED is worthless to watch. Almost worthless to collect. I mostly have those just because of the cover art. I need to thin down that collection pretty bad. I've a few of the players that still work, mostly just as a novelty when someone asks about them I can get one going. They really weren't anything that I was interested in back in the day. Seen a few in the wild at places but never knew anyone that had any.

Betamax is maybe my most collected format. Back in the day we had like one big deal video store and they had a huge rental sellection of Betamax. It was the premier audio video store in the area and a big deal for me as a kid to get to go there. They were heavy into Betamax being the superior format so their VHS section was a lot smaller. We had a VHS player. So I would always see videos on beta that I would have wanted to watch but they didn't have them on VHS. Later though when VHS took off that changed, and was also about the time other rental places started opening up and that video store stopped doing rentals.

VHS is something I don't care that much about. I have a lot of them because they were super cheap to just buy in bulk to get a movie or two I wanted out of a lot. I keep thinking I'll come up with some kind of art project to use old tapes with but have never gotten around to it. The thing I like the most about the format is that I find lots of ex rentals with cool stickers and wear on them. I have a few videos that are actually something rare but not many on this format. I think VHS and CED will be the two I drop from collecting.

Laserdisc is right up there with Betamax as far as how many I've collected. When I was a kid, that same video store I liked to go to had some of those big projection screen TV systems set up, Front projection with the curved screen, and rear projection. They would have their laserdisc players hooked up to those usually and always playing some movie like Star Wars or somthing from Disney. It was cool seeing the discs get turned over and I thought it was the most futuristic thing ever. Got totally sucked into that. Lots of cool stuff on the format and is in my opinion the best format to collect for still. I'm kind of shocked that there isn't more collector interest in them, but I think that comes down to the players to an extent at least and most people don't have any nostalgia for them.

As for other formats, I only just have a handfull of things like Video 8 or VHD. and maybe a two dozen or so Blu-ray and DVD and sadly a pretty good stack of HD-DVD that I should get rid of.

 

[snes_collector]

I had no idea sealed vhs has became such a big thing. I love to look at vhs at Good Will and will pick up any anime or wrestling vhs for the most part but that is it. Something about being a kid and being so fasinated with all the anime movies takes me back and for .50 cents why not. I probably have 20 or so. I feel like I see sealed copies sometimes, so I'll have to keep a better look out.

I understand why people like to collect them because they are cheap and abundant but I know I few people who are not collectors but still have vhs and use them

 

[terry.330]

LD prices are all over the place. I recently sold the last of my collection and stuff either went for hundreds of dollars or twenty and below. Even most of the Criterion stuff was surprisingly cheap.

I collect cult/horror BDs and there's never been a better time. So much weird and great stuff getting proper releases by small companies. Arrow, Criterion, Synapse, Vinegar Syndrome, Kino, Severin, Vestron, MVD etc. all putting out some really nice stuff. Even Warner Bros. is putting out some incredible stuff in their Archive series.

I need to region break my player because some of the stuff coming out in the UK is amazing and I know it'll never get the same treatment if it even gets released here.. 88 is putting out some incredible HK action and classic kung fu stuff.

 

[famicommander]

A lot of HD-DVD stuff is already trash. Some of the manufacturers used cheap dyes/glues and the discs are already rotted worse than the worst LDs I've come across.

 

[JoeAwesome]

Ngl, put on a VHS tape about 3 years ago, and it sucked having to forward through the previews, much less rewind the thing (go figure the one tape I tried needed to be rewound to the beginning).

Sucked all the nostalgia right out.

 

[Ralfakick]

A lot of HD-DVD stuff is already trash. Some of the manufacturers used cheap dyes/glues and the discs are already rotted worse than the worst LDs I've come across.

I need to check mine. I still have some without the covers. One of the companies maybe Universal was doing a deal if you sent in the HD DVD covers they sent you the bluray version for free, so I have a few without the covers and a couple more like Balls of Fury that came with the DVD so I held onto them for that mostly.

 

[NeoSneth]

Laserdiscs still being unwanted even with retards hyping up every possible piece of plastic from 40 years ago is hilarious

There's no major nostalgia for LD's because only the wealthy had them in the first place. That would be my guess.
Tho... that seems incompatible with the fact we're on a NeoGeo forum that most of us couldn't afford during its prime.

 

[terry.330]

There's no major nostalgia for LD's because only the wealthy had them in the first place. That would be my guess.
Tho... that seems incompatible with the fact we're on a NeoGeo forum that most of us couldn't afford during its prime.

A lot of people dreamed of owning Neo when they were kids but how many people dreamed of owning LDs? Not many.

 

[NeoSneth]

True, it just felt ironic when I put the two together.
I'm downsizing my LD's mostly due to the weight...and my growing Vinyl collection. I should probably parse both down.

 

[Karou]

i have totoro on vhs

#bigtymr

 

[norton9478]

CED discs are awesome..... As LP/LD dividers.

 

[Tripredacus]

A lot of HD-DVD stuff is already trash. Some of the manufacturers used cheap dyes/glues and the discs are already rotted worse than the worst LDs I've come across.

The rot issues with HD-DVD has been a thing to watch out for for over a decade now. That's a long time considering the format isn't that old. I'd say 80% of the HD-DVD I find secondhand have bad looking discs. There are some regular DVD that have a similar issue but those don't get any worse or have problems being read by players.

All the hype is only on the things that have always been valuable. Beta is just a newcomer but niche VHS has always been a thing. Horror videos are the JPRGs of the home video scene. Uncommon US media (uncommon media, rare players) are still on the low side. This includes LaserDisc, Video8, CED. The real rarities I don't know, D-VHS is still astronomical but has always been so. Divx unlocked I don't know what that market is but you never see that format anywhere. VCD once being something you couldn't give away is now impossible to find or has gone up in price especially on Ebay. There doesn't seem to be any value increase on Surround VHS vs stereo or mono VHS. The Beta value change happened a few years ago when the prices of players went up, especially Sony frontloaders.

I went hardcore into movie collecting for about 10 years before I basically hit a limit. I had 14 shelves of videos of various formats. I have too many hobbies and collecting videos was one I had to cut back on. Now I limit myself to 1 shelf for a media type. So that means 1 shelf for VHS instead of 6 ot 7 shelfs.