VHS Tapes Making a Comeback and You Can Score Big $$
Like most folks my age, I remember going to the rental store with my father on a Friday night or Saturday and renting the latest movies or the hottest NES game and making a fun weekend out of it. I grew up in Northern Berkshire County so we would do most of our renting at Adams Video or Video Studio/Movie Gallery and later on at the built in rental store at the North Adams Stop and Shop.
I'm sure with the modern convenience of streaming, people look at the days of renting VHS flicks as a hassle but come on, it was fun, it was an adventure, it was an event. I remember as I got a little older, I would go to Video Studio in the town of Adams and there I would rent 7 movies for 7 nights for $7.77. It was such a fun treat to do this especially on a school vacation.
Even when I landed the Program Director/on-air job at WSBS in late 2005, and my wife and I moved to Lee, I was thrilled to learn that I could still rent videos at Lee Video as well as Impoco's Alice in Videoland in Great Barrington. It was such a fun time. I felt like a kid in a candy store.
I read recently in an NBC News story that VHS tapes are in demand again. People still watch them for nostalgic purposes and as a way to destress from a hard day at work. Some mom and pop stores that carry used VHS tapes are selling them faster than the shops can keep up with. Plus, certain titles never made the jump from VHS to DVD, never mind Blue Ray or streaming. So, the only way you can enjoy those selections are by way of VHS. In addition, certain titles are worth serious dollars especially the out of print ones.
I went to Ebay and it's shocking what some titles are listed at and even more shocking that potential buyers have their eyes on them and in some cases are placing decent bids on the tapes. But maybe it's not so shocking since this is a trend again. For example the 1986 film RAD which is about BMX biking has a current bid (as of this writing) of $75.00 and keep in mind, this is a used video. There have been 20 bids on this listing and there are currently 20 watchers. The retro low budget horror film Dreamslayer has a current bid (as of this writing) of $64.00 and has had 10 bids and 11 watchers.
The really big ticket VHS tapes are the Disney titles. A new VHS copy of the 'Beauty and the Beast' Diamond edition is listed at $1,280,000.00. That's too many zeros. And yet, there are 70 people watching that item. Brand new and even used copies of Aladdin are listed at over $1,000,000.00 and between the two listings there are several hundred watchers. In some cases, VHS can still be BIG business if you own in demand or special edition titles
Wrestling videos seem to be a hot commodity too. My guess is that this is in part due to the fact that the WWE Network has moved to Peacock and not all of the titles are on the NBC streaming service yet. Even when the WWE Network was active, there were many VHS tapes that contained matches that didn't make it to DVD, Blue Ray or the streaming platform, hence the only way you could see those matches was to purchase the VHS tape. An example of this is the WWF Wrestlefest '95 VHS which on Ebay has a Buy it Now option of $529.95.
So, don't throw away your VHS tapes, you may just have a goldmine sitting in your basement or attic. Not sure, give them a shot on Ebay, you may be surprised what you get for them.