Anyone collecting V.H.S. cassettes? - Videokarma.org TV - Video

Telecolor 3007 · #1 09-30-2007, 07:44 AM

Anyone collecting V.H.S. cassettes?

Sandy G · #2 09-30-2007, 08:33 AM

Well, I have a BUNCH of 'em...I'm not actively collecting them, per se...

OvenMaster · #3 09-30-2007, 08:48 AM

I have maybe 100 or so, all with TV shows on them. "One of these days" my family will watch them... probably when HDTV is the only game in town and we haven't bought converter boxes and analog broadcasts get shut down in 2009.
Tom

tankdonovan · #4 09-30-2007, 09:30 AM

Not collecting...but I still buy them for my grandson. Cheap prices on kid movies. I have yet to buy a bad one.

TankDonovan

retrokeeper · #5 09-30-2007, 10:51 AM

I've started collecting all the Disney animated titles after picking up a cool poster at Disneyland that shows all their movie marque's/posters made from the beginning up to the Lion King...plan to get them all on VHS tape,not DVD,since the tapes are just about everywhere. Rob

kx250rider · #6 09-30-2007, 11:49 AM

I have plenty, but no collector interest in them. Slowly but surely, I'm copying all the ones I want to keep onto DVD, and tossing the 20-plus-year-old decaying VHS tapes. Many of them load the heads as soon as I go to play them, so it's now or never to save the contents!

Charles

Telecolor 3007 · #7 09-30-2007, 12:28 PM

I think I have about 110-120 V.H.S. video cassettes :surprise: + 1 Betacam S.P. cassette (the big type)

Most of them are with stuff that I recorded from tv. Some of them are original. But I want cassettes with good old '90's music and '90's shows from tv. The mayor of the 2nd Sector (District) - (sector is an administrativ division in Bucharest) closed the flea market and I must go to an one in the other end of the city, but I never get up early - shees, is one of the moments when I want to own a car!

fdrennen · #8 09-30-2007, 12:42 PM

For several years in the 1990's I bought about two tapes every week as I got paid. I worked in downtown mahattan around the corner from J&R music world. I have tapes in the attic, tapes in the shed tapes in the basement and tapes in the bedroom. I have 4 VCR's one Sony beta. Besides the tapes I bought CD's & LP's (When J&R were still selling them!). I guess I need help!

P.S. I used to spend my lunch hour in J&R's Jazz record store.

matt_s78mn · #9 09-30-2007, 02:51 PM

I have a bunch of S-VHS tapes that i've used to record movies and shows on, as I've been using a Panasonic AG-1970 as my main VCR. I also have some 3/4" uMatic tapes, but havent' used any of them in a while

Elfasto · #10 09-30-2007, 04:20 PM

Have a bunch of them, but i'm phasing them out for either DVD or Laserdisc.

dr.ido · #11 10-01-2007, 12:18 AM

I have around 200+ VHS tapes boxed up in storage somewhere, mainly stuff I recorded from TV or copied from other tapes years ago. Back when everyone was still using VHS my VCRs were immune to Macrovision so friends and relatives were always asking me to make copies.

Recently I've picked up a couple of nice SVHS VCRs and was pleasanly surprised by the picture quality, even from tapes I recorded back then on a basic 2 head mono VCR. It's obviously never going to be DVD or LD quality, but it still very watchable.

I've started picking up more tapes when I see stuff that missed when it came out. VHS is very cheap now. Large boxes of tapes can often be bought for $10 or less regardless of whether they are original prerecorded or home recorded.

I like the fact the VHS tapes will almost always play. Among my small collection of DVDs I have a couple are incompatible with one of my DVD players. They aren't scratched or damaged, they just get to a certain spot in the menu and freeze. It was very frustrating to pull the system apart to change the DVD player so I could play one of those discs only to find the transfer was no better than the older VHS copy I already had. DVDs of recent mainstream stuff are fine, but I've found the rereleases of some old/obscure titles can be very dodgy. I've seen at least one that was obviously made from a VHS source.

I've got a box of uMatic tapes and a deck somewhere, but I don't think I've ever played them.

Telecolor 3007 · #12 10-01-2007, 01:33 AM

Guys, from where the heck do you get those nice S.-V.H.S./U-Matic decks?
I guess in U.S.A. are quyte cheap comparing to the incomes.

Captain Video · #13 10-01-2007, 02:52 AM

I have a load of VHS tapes, they were been sold really so cheap around here that in fact no one wants to sell then anymore, because they were really getting no profit at all. Even used book stores and thrift shops now prefer to sell used DVD discs than VHS tapes.

It's quite impressive to see that, in a relatively short period of time, DVD players became extremely popular. There are players from good brands for sale at ridiculous low prices. In fact, in the 1990's It was normal to meet people who didn't had a VCR; now I even get shocked when I meet someone who still don't have a DVD player. It's just so cheap that even the poorest of the poorest can have one.

There are millions and millions of VHS tapes out there, to a point I doubt that anytime in the future they will became a special collectable like, say, 78 RPM records. Anyway, I collect them, because, valuable or not, they will represent a special moment in the History of home entertainment technology, specially for me, who was a kid in the 1980's and thought it was the greatest thing ever, to be able to watch movies of my choice at home, and to record movies and programs from television.

I still have our first VCR, a 1986 Panasonic. It's not working, and looks a little beat up, but I keep it for nostalgic reasons. Had I not took possesion of it, It could possible be in the dumpster by now.

I still want to put my hands on one of the VERY OLD models, one of those VCRs from the late 70's or early 80's - one of those with top loading and rotary tuners.

I think that probably the most valuable VHS tapes will be those of the first releases of famous movies. The oldest I have is a 1984 American VHS of "Diamonds are Forever" ( 1971 ).

It would also be good to put my hands on Beta tapes and on a Betamax player, I think it will became more valuable than VHS, because it is a rarer format.

dr.ido · #14 10-01-2007, 05:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Telecolor 3007

Guys, from where the heck do you get those nice S.-V.H.S./U-Matic decks?
I guess in U.S.A. are quyte cheap comparing to the incomes.

I'm in Australia, but the situation in the USA is probably similar. Most people have no interest in VHS anymore and have dumped or are dumping their VHS gear and tapes.

Like almost all of my stuff all but one of my VCRs was bought at a local junk auction. Working (ones that play, their isn't enough time to test all functions) VCRs typically sell for $5-$20, if it doesn't work it's usually $2 (the minimum bid) if it sells at all. It all depends on who is there on the night of the auction. To most of the people there one VCR is the same as another. They don't usually recognise SVHS and pay more for it. The only thing the usually makes a difference in the price is the brand name. A low end Sony or Panasonic will often sell for more than a high end deck from any other manufacturer.

The high end and professional decks don't show up every week, usually it's just stacks of basic mono VHS decks.

This Loewe OC3820H (actually built by Hitachi from memory) is my most recent SVHS purchase. It has a power supply fault that I haven't looked into yet. It cost $2. On the same night a working Panasonic SVHS deck sold for $8. I passed on the Panasonic. I already have more VCRs than I need and I'm trying to cut down on the amount of gear I buy. I just couldn't resist that Loewe deck because it matches my Loewe TVs.

I still have the one and only VCR I bought new many years ago. A basic 2 head mono Akai VHS deck. I spent the night waiting in the car park with 29 other people to get it for $99 at one of those doorbuster gimmick sales. This was before DVD when the regular price was $299 and it wasn't possible to get good VCRs for almost nothing. It's still working, but it doesn't get much use anymore.

Kiwick · #15 10-01-2007, 06:39 AM

I still have a cupboard full of VHS tapes from my childhood, along with our first VCR we bought in 1985, a Hitachi VT-8 "dockable" top loader, this VCR had non-standard stereo sound recorded on the tape's analog sound track... sadly, it quit working in about 2003 due to a slackened loading motor belt that's nearly impossible to replace...

Now i'm playing them on a late 80s JVC...