Should i keep old vhs tapes

Meanwhile, record shops and secondhand stores are awash in tapes. EBay spits out more than , results if you search "VHS movies. Jackie Greed, who works at the indie record emporium Amoeba Music in Los Angeles, used to struggle to find takers for the store's trove of used cassettes, wondering if she'd ever be able to sell the stuff. But in the last few years, the tapes have been "selling faster than I can keep up with," Greed said, adding that and something customers are burning through everything from megahits like "Titanic" to relatively run-of-the-mill titles from the s, such as the Clint Eastwood thriller "Absolute Power.

Greed, 51, said that these days Amoeba Music sells close to an average of 2, VHS tapes every month. She and her boyfriend have more than 5, tapes in their personal collection. The renewed enthusiasm for the old format has created a small but spirited cottage industry. Adam Haug, a graphic designer and veritable VHS addict who lives in Omaha, Nebraska, said he has "amassed hundreds of friends in the VHS community," a patchwork of folks who assemble in private Facebook groups and Reddit forums , usually with a yen for horror and sci-fi arcana.

It's thriving," said Haug, 38, who said he has "somewhere between 1, and 2," tapes in his basement, many of them schlocky horror flicks that never made the jump to DVD and then went out of print.

I'm almost completely out of room in my basement. Caetlin Benson-Allott, a professor of film and media studies at Georgetown, believes this renewed zeal for VHS suggests a hunger for physical media in the digital era — objects you can hold in your hand instead of files floating in the proverbial cloud.

You'd get anything you wanted, anytime you wanted it," Benson-Allott said, pointing out that one of her favorite films — the Diane Keaton vehicle "Looking for Mr. Goodbar" — has only been available in the U.

As a result, it was quickly pulled from the shelves and a redesign was made immediately by Disney. The rarity of these tapes represents their main appeal. These are also worth more on the free market. But apart from them, you will also find that VHS tapes of any unusual or particularly old movies are generally a good scoop. For instance, any ancient horror films tend to fetch a fair price — anything from the early eighties will get you at least 20 bucks.

Just remember — you will be able to get the most money out of specific editions of classic movies. Your best bet would be searching for the movie title that you want to sell on eBay and then seeing if anyone else has sold it and for how much money.

As you may have noticed, a majority of this article was focused on what you should do if you want to get rid of your old VHS tapes. Well, the first thing that you need to keep in mind is — the tapes should be kept in their original packaging. But most importantly, they will do a good job when it comes to eliminating the possibility of moisture or dust wreaking havoc on your tapes.

In the long term, this basic step will preserve the video and audio quality of your tapes. All of that is a surefire way to never being able to use them again. However, if you take some basic precautions when it comes to these tapes; you should have no trouble making use of them later. Welcome back! We sent you an email to create a new password. After creating a password, please click the link below to login.

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Just enter some information for us. Year Birth year needed! Please enter a better zip than that Password must be at least 8 characters, including uppercase, lowercase, and a number. Password needs to be stronger Passwords should match. Thanks For Joining User generated content in real-time will have multiple touchpoints for offshoring. Is it really that bad to throw them away in the first place? If only it were that simple. The outer cases of VHS, Betamax and audio cassette tapes are indeed plastic, and at least theoretically recyclable.

The inner tape is made of a phthalate-laden form of the plastic polyethylene, often sold under the trade name Mylar, which is not recyclable. Instead, look for local recycling companies. For this and other tough recycling quandaries, try Green Citizen , recycling.