Will these become Valuable?

Milko · Aug 13, 2015

I was wondering, for the last nearly a year now I buy all my movies and such on VHS, and going to various charity-style shops I've found several sealed recordable VHS tapes, as well as some other tapes.

And I was wondering, do you guys think these will become valuable in the future? Because for the last few years most people have been pretty much desperate to get rid of all their old tapes, and I've bought a few here and there. Currently I have about 400 VHS tapes (most are old tapes my parents recorded and let me use). Here are some pictures of some tapes I think might possibly have slightly more value in them:

The first photo is a picture of my collection of sealed recordable VHS tapes. The second and third photos are of one of my X-Files tapes that is still sealed (with its original proof of purchase card thingy

) A couple of my X-Files ones are sealed as well.

The last photo is interesting because, well, the reason I posted it is because I remember seeing a documentary on tape trading in the 1980's, and when it had a clip talking about the early 80's, it had a shot of a video store with some cassettes that looked exactly like this one. And it just looks more worn that any other recordable tape I own. I was wondering if it might be worth more because of it's possible age of maybe 30+ years (the tape still works perfectly also).

What do you guys think? Am I buying up tapes for nothing? (I probably won't stop even if I am

I love getting them and they go for around 20-50c nowdays)

Trevor · Aug 13, 2015

Given a hundred years or so, they might have become rare enough to be desirable. Try back in 2095 but for best results, have a working VCR as well. Seems like a bad bet unless you've got free, very clean storage for a long time.

Milko · Aug 13, 2015

Oh well, one of my friends has a few old BetaMax tapes that they recorded back in the 80's. I know they would sell for heaps compared to vhs. But I'm still not going to stop buying them

I'm pretty much known for wanting things that have no value to anyone else. Besides, maybe I'll show them to future generations and be like "this is what we used to do to record TV shows!"

I have about 5 or 6 VHS recorders (6 if you count the one in my camcorder), some are newer than others, all working except one I bought in scotland which has since got a broken pinch roller assembly.

Trevor · Aug 13, 2015

Milko said:
Oh well, one of my friends has a few old BetaMax tapes that they recorded back in the 80's. I know they would sell for heaps compared to vhs. But I'm still not going to stop buying them I'm pretty much known for wanting things that have no value to anyone else. Besides, maybe I'll show them to future generations and be like "this is what we used to do to record TV shows!"

I have about 5 or 6 VHS recorders (6 if you count the one in my camcorder), some are newer than others, all working except one I bought in scotland which has since got a broken pinch roller assembly.

Beta tapes work because they got crushed pretty early in the competition with VHS and because they were actually better, so those who had them were inclined to try to stick with it. You get a much smaller base of product and a dedicated group of enthusiasts and you have the ingredients for some collector's items. VHS tapes were around for decades and the X-Files was a popular program, so you have two strikes against you already and just have to wait a long time for them to become rare.

ade · Aug 13, 2015

http://canvasprintmaker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/storing-cine-films-camcorder-tapes-and.html

Jeremy Clarkson made a good point in the last showing of Top Gear (two mini-adventures cobbled together from aleady filmed stuff for the now dead series, or form thereof): nobody buys a vintage television [because you have keep banging it and getting up to turn over, etc]
i think that a lot of pop televisual stuff is going to be the same, except for the quirky things like Beta, which is only quirky because it lost out to VHS.
Scotch tapes are some of the worst for longevity, with the plastic tape often becoming sticky (yes, i still have some, stashed away; i daren't try them).

Milko · Aug 13, 2015

ade said:
http://canvasprintmaker.blogspot.co.uk/2012/03/storing-cine-films-camcorder-tapes-and.html nobody buys a vintage television [because you have keep banging it and getting up to turn over, etc]

I'd love an old Vintage colour TV from the 70's. I hardly use remotes anyway so I wouldn't miss one. And it'd look great playing my old doctor who's on VHS ^_^ And I'd love like an old Ferguson VideoStar VHS recorder with the piano key buttons

Pretty much my dream setup for when I move out of home. I hardly ever watch TV so I wouldn't have a problem there either.

Zeek61 · Aug 15, 2015

Other thing is that VHS deteriorates over time. The tape inside actually builds up mold on it and causes deterioration of the tape itself. They can be restored but would need to be cleaned quite regularly in order to prevent that from happening. I remember having this discussion with an AV technician when we upgraded our TV/surround sound system as our previous one we had for about 15 years (my parents had it when i was very young) ... anyways, he had been involved with restoring and digitalising old VHS and had told us about the difficulties of doing such, especially when people tend not to store their VHS tapes in very good places.

Plus, nowadays streaming things is far more popular. Heck, even DVD is starting to go out of fashion due to the multitude of streaming services and wide array of digital formats available. I can't remember the last time i even bought a DVD as i tend to stream TV shows. Plus if you look at a lot of those services that do stream, they are already offering these "classical" TV shows in a digital format for people to watch. So this will definitely decrease the value of VHS.

Unfortunately VHS is not as comparable to records (which still do have a lot of value, particularly if you have the master records).

Milko · Aug 15, 2015

Zeek61 said:
Other thing is that VHS deteriorates over time. The tape inside actually builds up mold on it and causes deterioration of the tape itself. They can be restored but would need to be cleaned quite regularly in order to prevent that from happening. I remember having this discussion with an AV technician when we upgraded our TV/surround sound system as our previous one we had for about 15 years (my parents had it when i was very young) ... anyways, he had been involved with restoring and digitalising old VHS and had told us about the difficulties of doing such, especially when people tend not to store their VHS tapes in very good places.

Plus, nowadays streaming things is far more popular. Heck, even DVD is starting to go out of fashion due to the multitude of streaming services and wide array of digital formats available. I can't remember the last time i even bought a DVD as i tend to stream TV shows. Plus if you look at a lot of those services that do stream, they are already offering these "classical" TV shows in a digital format for people to watch. So this will definitely decrease the value of VHS.

Unfortunately VHS is not as comparable to records (which still do have a lot of value, particularly if you have the master records).

yeah, I have an old PCI capture card in my computer and I am thinking of digitizing my tapes, but I have so many it would take forever and use up so much space on my computer

I have taken apart tapes before to clean them and fix them up (once I had a tape that had somehow folded over and twisted on the reel

) I dunno, I'm alright at storing them and sometimes I question people who say tapes will only last like 10-20 years, like I have 30+ year old tapes that work perfectly still.

Mattew · Aug 16, 2015

Milko said:
yeah, I have an old PCI capture card in my computer and I am thinking of digitizing my tapes, but I have so many it would take forever and use up so much space on my computer I have taken apart tapes before to clean them and fix them up (once I had a tape that had somehow folded over and twisted on the reel ) I dunno, I'm alright at storing them and sometimes I question people who say tapes will only last like 10-20 years, like I have 30+ year old tapes that work perfectly still.

Is there a way for you to record them? I thought that VHS tapes had something that prevented them to be copied or recorded. I digitized a lot of our old family VHS tapes several years back. We also tried to record some old cartoons that we had & they wouldn't record right. Those would only record the audio correctly. The video part was very choppy

Milko · Aug 16, 2015

Mattew said:
Is there a way for you to record them? I thought that VHS tapes had something that prevented them to be copied or recorded. I digitized a lot of our old family VHS tapes several years back. We also tried to record some old cartoons that we had & they wouldn't record right. Those would only record the audio correctly. The video part was very choppy

I don't think any of my tapes do. I've only heard of record protection in DVD's. About a year ago a friend lent me some dvd's and I was going to record them to VHS but they wouldn't record properly.

ade · Aug 17, 2015

Milko said:
yeah, I have an old PCI capture card in my computer and I am thinking of digitizing my tapes, but I have so many it would take forever and use up so much space on my computer I have taken apart tapes before to clean them and fix them up (once I had a tape that had somehow folded over and twisted on the reel ) I dunno, I'm alright at storing them and sometimes I question people who say tapes will only last like 10-20 years, like I have 30+ year old tapes that work perfectly still.

Regarding the copy protection, that only applies via scart; you can still copy via the UHF output, if memory serves me right.
But I shouldn't bother (and I don't) for you can find DVD/broadcast quality digitizations on the [not so] world-wide-web.

Milko · Aug 17, 2015

ade said:
Regarding the copy protection, that only applies via scart; you can still copy via the UHF output, if memory serves me right.
But I shouldn't bother (and I don't) for you can find DVD/broadcast quality digitizations on the [not so] world-wide-web.

Yeah but I don't want to have to buy everything again. One of the reasons I still buy most stuff on VHS is because it's so cheap (~20c per tape which can contain like 3-6 episodes of a TV show normally) and I don't mind the quality. I could get them online but it's also annoying because the only things in my entertainment setup with my amp and good speakers that I can use are CD, VHS and cassette tape.

ade · Aug 17, 2015

Milko said:
Yeah but I don't want to have to buy everything again. One of the reasons I still buy most stuff on VHS is because it's so cheap (~20c per tape which can contain like 3-6 episodes of a TV show normally) and I don't mind the quality. I could get them online but it's also annoying because the only things in my entertainment setup with my amp and good speakers that I can use are CD, VHS and cassette tape.

Who said anything about buying?

Anyways, it's nigh on twenty years since I last buggered about doing vhs to vhs and almost fifteen for the conversions: it's got me trying to recall the hows of it. I may have a tinker.

Milko · Aug 17, 2015

ade said:
Who said anything about buying?
Anyways, it's nigh on twenty years since I last buggered about doing vhs to vhs and almost fifteen for the conversions: it's got me trying to recall the hows of it. I may have a tinker.

When I want to record copy protected stuff normally I just use my capture card on my computer, for the smarter bastards that can detect that stuff I point my camera to the screen and record it. Sounds tacky I know but I've been doing it for years and I've gotten very good at it. Sometimes it can be hard to tell the difference between it and the original unless you compare the two side by side. And I capture the audio directly so it sounds fine.

millerjim · Aug 20, 2015

I doubt it, what could they even be used for in the future?

plasticsounds · Aug 21, 2015

I used to think all of that cap was wothless. In the last few years, I have been proven wrong. I just saw a Disney VHS movie (can't remember which one) selling for over $100.

You never know. It's possible that those tapes contain original versions of shows that have been edited for modern television run-times. 'The Flintstones' was cut to allow more commercials.

It's possible that you could be sitting on a gold mine.

Then again, probably not.

Milko · Aug 22, 2015

plasticsounds said:
I used to think all of that cap was wothless. In the last few years, I have been proven wrong. I just saw a Disney VHS movie (can't remember which one) selling for over $100.

You never know. It's possible that those tapes contain original versions of shows that have been edited for modern television run-times. 'The Flintstones' was cut to allow more commercials.

It's possible that you could be sitting on a gold mine.

Then again, probably not.

Well there's probably over a thousand hours of video here. Haha maybe I'll look through it sometime. Though probably the most interesting things I've found is random chocolate bar commercials from the 80's and the ABC news report on September 11 2001.