My Panasonic PV-4022 VCR isn't nearly as old as yours (I'd say mine is perhaps 15 years old), but I still use it to watch my old VHS video tapes (about 60 of them) occasionally. Can't use it for recording in its present condition (Spectrum, formerly Time Warner Cable, is now all digital so the VCR won't record any longer, unless I hook it up to a cable box which I don't want or need), but it still works for playing back old tapes. Since I don't use it that much anymore since getting a DVD player several years ago, I think it should last a while longer.
I also have a Radio Shack SCT-11 stereo audio cassette tape deck, made in 1977, that works amazingly well for its age; it still has its original belts, every one of which is in good shape except the one that drives the tape counter. That one disintegrated shortly after I got the deck, but fortunately, it doesn't affect the unit's operation.
Nearly 40 years is a long time for any VCR to last, and it's even more remarkable it still works after all that time. My first VCR, in 1984, was a GE-branded unit built by Panasonic; it worked well for me for six years, then the heads wore out. I took it to a local TV repair shop and was told it would cost $250 to repair, so I gave up and bought a new Emerson machine. That one lasted about five years and was replaced by a Magnavox-branded VCR, which again lasted only a few years (I used it, the Emerson and the GE deck quite a bit). The Magnavox was replaced by my first "real" Panasonic VCR, with VCR Plus+, which lasted just a couple of years. It would have lasted longer if a tape hadn't jammed in it; the tape was of a TV show I had recorded only about three hours (!) before the problem occurred, so I never saw the program.
The VCR Plus+ function won't work these days, of course (to say nothing of the fact hardly anyone uses VCRs anymore), but if any of you still have a VCR with it, I'd hang on to it. Such VCRs could be collectors' items before long, if they aren't already.
The Panasonic with VCR Plus+ was replaced by my present Panasonic PV-4022 VCR which still works and, as I said, should be around a bit longer since I don't use it much these days.
BTW, I know what it's like having to downsize. I did just that eighteen years ago, when I left a three-bedroom house with a basement and moved to a one-bedroom apartment (very long story and OT). I brought most of the stuff from the old house with me when I moved here, and wound up throwing out maybe 80 percent of it, since this place I moved to is nowhere near big enough for collecting much of anything. I'll be throwing out stuff for some time even yet, since I have a closet full of junk I haven't used or even looked at in years, and my bedroom is the same way. I put some of it under my bed, but I haven't looked at that stuff much either. Oh well, one of these days I'll get caught up, but as much stuff as I still have, it will take a very long time. I don't want to do much with the stuff under the bed due to an accident I had about a year and a half ago, caused when I lost my balance, fell and was wedged between the bed and a chest of drawers for hours (!) looking under there.