VHS collecting 2 2

[Larryw7]

 

On 2/25/2022 at 7:06 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

That was before my time. While I have heard of Betamax, I didn't know that it was obsolete because VHS won the war. Interesting.

Edited February 25, 2022 by Larryw7

[Axelrod]

I remember reading somewhere a long time ago that the real reason VHS won the format war with Betamax was because of porn.

i.e. the porn industry decided on a VHS standard, and after that it was basically over....

[Buzzetta]

Here is where I disagree with the collecting of sealed VHS tapes. 

What are you actually collecting and where is the value? 

Are you collecting a box with a hunk of plastic in it or are you collecting something under the assumption that if it were removed from the package it would actually work?  When I worked for Disney we were warned that VHS cassettes needed to be used in order to slow the degrading process.  Over a period of years, not decades, the tapes will degrade and even more significantly if they are not used.  The tape has been known to become brittle if not played.

So... that raises the question.  Is the collector buying these knowing that the artifact is being graded as a box only?  The interior product is far more questionable.

A comic, a baseball card and most toys can be inspected to assess their condition.  A comic book can be cracked out of a slab and inspected and then slabbed again realizing the same grade.  A sealed VHS cassette is more of a ticking time bomb.

I've likened the VHS collector who is spending money on these things as the equivalent to the GI Joe collector buying Mint on Card joes knowing that over time that o-ring is going to crack and the pressure from the rivets are slowly breaking the elbow joints and the arms.  If a guy pays $1000 for a joe that snaps on the card it cannot be 'fixed' without removing it from the card.  However, the item is definitely no longer worth what the buyer originally paid because he has a broken figure sealed to a card. 

So is this a fad or are a lot of people about to lose a significant amount of money?  Someone recently paid north of $30,000 for a copy of Terminator through Metro.  That's not even T2.  

Are these things actually going to maintain value or are people looking to hype the next best thing? 

[Sauce Dog]

On 2/26/2022 at 12:35 PM, Buzzetta said:

Here is where I disagree with the collecting of sealed VHS tapes. 

What are you actually collecting and where is the value? 

Are you collecting a box with a hunk of plastic in it or are you collecting something under the assumption that if it were removed from the package it would actually work?  When I worked for Disney we were warned that VHS cassettes needed to be used in order to slow the degrading process.  Over a period of years, not decades, the tapes will degrade and even more significantly if they are not used.  The tape has been known to become brittle if not played.

So... that raises the question.  Is the collector buying these knowing that the artifact is being graded as a box only?  The interior product is far more questionable.

A comic, a baseball card and most toys can be inspected to assess their condition.  A comic book can be cracked out of a slab and inspected and then slabbed again realizing the same grade.  A sealed VHS cassette is more of a ticking time bomb.

I've likened the VHS collector who is spending money on these things as the equivalent to the GI Joe collector buying Mint on Card joes knowing that over time that o-ring is going to crack and the pressure from the rivets are slowly breaking the elbow joints and the arms.  If a guy pays $1000 for a joe that snaps on the card it cannot be 'fixed' without removing it from the card.  However, the item is definitely no longer worth what the buyer originally paid because he has a broken figure sealed to a card. 

So is this a fad or are a lot of people about to lose a significant amount of money?  Someone recently paid north of $30,000 for a copy of Terminator through Metro.  That's not even T2.  

Are these things actually going to maintain value or are people looking to hype the next best thing? 

Yup, all this. The tight tape wound during manufacturing has to be played or else will stress. With other collectibles there are at least SOME conservation/preservation benefits that come with grading (even if it's a simple thing like including micro chamber paper in with a comic, or doing pre-grading work such as de-acification)...but nothing can be done for a sealed tape other than *gasp* maybe removing a price tag from the plastic wrap, oh my! 

Literal time bombs.

Edited February 26, 2022 by Sauce Dog

[rabidwolf]

On 2/26/2022 at 9:35 AM, Buzzetta said:

Here is where I disagree with the collecting of sealed VHS tapes. 

What are you actually collecting and where is the value? 

Are you collecting a box with a hunk of plastic in it or are you collecting something under the assumption that if it were removed from the package it would actually work?  When I worked for Disney we were warned that VHS cassettes needed to be used in order to slow the degrading process.  Over a period of years, not decades, the tapes will degrade and even more significantly if they are not used.  The tape has been known to become brittle if not played.

So... that raises the question.  Is the collector buying these knowing that the artifact is being graded as a box only?  The interior product is far more questionable.

A comic, a baseball card and most toys can be inspected to assess their condition.  A comic book can be cracked out of a slab and inspected and then slabbed again realizing the same grade.  A sealed VHS cassette is more of a ticking time bomb.

I've likened the VHS collector who is spending money on these things as the equivalent to the GI Joe collector buying Mint on Card joes knowing that over time that o-ring is going to crack and the pressure from the rivets are slowly breaking the elbow joints and the arms.  If a guy pays $1000 for a joe that snaps on the card it cannot be 'fixed' without removing it from the card.  However, the item is definitely no longer worth what the buyer originally paid because he has a broken figure sealed to a card. 

So is this a fad or are a lot of people about to lose a significant amount of money?  Someone recently paid north of $30,000 for a copy of Terminator through Metro.  That's not even T2.  

Are these things actually going to maintain value or are people looking to hype the next best thing? 

All good points

i guess time will tell but I really feel vhs is more analogous to video games then comics cards etc. 

if video game collecting is any indication this will definitely have a collectors market

if people view vhs collecting simply as a sealed artifact and not concerned about whether it works won’t matter

I saw heritage is set to have a signature type vhs auction end of April probably with higher end tapes 

will be interesting to see

[comicartfan]

On 2/25/2022 at 7:06 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

That was before my time. While I have heard of Betamax, I didn't know that it was obsolete because VHS won the war. Interesting.

 

Sony created Betamax and JVC created VHS. Betamax was a better quality and when I first started renting tapes (1983), some video stores carried both. Eventually VHS won out for some reason and Betamax went the way of the T-Rex

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/26/2022 at 7:57 PM, comicartfan said:

Sony created Betamax and JVC created VHS. Betamax was a better quality and when I first started renting tapes (1983), some video stores carried both. Eventually VHS won out for some reason and Betamax went the way of the T-Rex

Sony offered Betamax to other manufacturers but required a license fee for use.  JVC turned around and offered VHS for free use to all other vendors.  Other manufacturers ended up deciding to go with VHS and the content providers responded accordingly.

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/25/2022 at 6:06 AM, theCapraAegagrus said:

That was before my time. While I have heard of Betamax, I didn't know that it was obsolete because VHS won the war. Interesting.

I wouldn't say it was obsolete.  It was still the best quality consumer video recording tech into the late 90s.  But very little content was sold in the format after 1982 or so.

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/21/2022 at 3:45 PM, F For Fake said:

It never occurred to me that we might have so many laserdisc fans on the boards! I don't have nearly as many as I used to, but I've stubbornly hung onto a few, and I enjoy hanging out in the LD groups on Facebook to see the collections of other folks. Having been born in 77, I grew up in the VHS rental era, and of course have great fondness for it. But by the time I had a job and was buying my own stuff, I got a laserdisc player, as that was the best/only way to see most of these movies in their intended aspect ratios, with bonus features, etc. So my childhood nostalgia is for VHS, but my COLLECTOR nostalgia is for LD.

I still have all of laserdiscs including a bunch of Criterion titles and some music documentaries.  I sold high end audio/video in the 90s and one of the stores I worked at rented LDs to incentivize purchasing players.  But the writing was on the wall as the Grand Alliance was working establishing the high definition standard for broadcast and media.  

I haven't looked at mine in years but they very much remind me of one of the reasons I like vinyl- the large size of the sleeves and the images, other content printed on them.  

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/24/2022 at 10:04 PM, F For Fake said:

I think the inclusion of the built-in BD player on the PS3 was a smart move on Sony’s part. Whether PS3 buyers cared or not, they suddenly had a BD player in their homes. It was easy enough to go ahead and make the jump.

This was a major hinge point.  Many consumers purchased PS3s because they were pretty good Blu-ray players.  My understanding is that the other big factor was adult entertainment going with Blu-ray (doesn't one of the characters in Tropic Thunder talk about this?).

[Rip]

Sealed laserdiscs in decent shape are really tough to come by for some of the 80's horror titles which is the my main area of my collection.

Thought I would share some from Friday the 13th and Halloween. The sealed Halloween II disc is a RCA CED disc which went to the way side in the mid to late 80's unlike the more traditional laserdisc which lasted until 2000.

Friday the 13th parts 1, 2 7,8. (Japanese uncut 1 and 7)

Halloween 1 CAV and CLD Criterion, Halloween H20 DTS and regular

 

Edited February 27, 2022 by Rip

[eastriver400]

VHS tapes is one I can’t wrap my head around because all VHS tapes (even when not in use) experience signal loss over time. They eventually completely deteriorate.  
 

Then again, I have chosen to slab my books so they could never be opened again. So never mind. 

[70s80sTimeMachine]

On 2/27/2022 at 2:11 AM, Randall Dowling said:

This was a major hinge point.  Many consumers purchased PS3s because they were pretty good Blu-ray players.....

Sony made some great moves early on. When they implemented full DTS-HD Master Audio lossless support; their PS3s were better options than half of the limited bluray player market at that point in time. 

[Pitboss]

VHS was the first mass "On Demand" service. A LOT of nostalgia for many including myself. That being said I wouldn't pay these prices. 

[theCapraAegagrus]

On 2/27/2022 at 1:59 AM, Randall Dowling said:

I wouldn't say it was obsolete.  It was still the best quality consumer video recording tech into the late 90s.  But very little content was sold in the format after 1982 or so.

This basically fits the definition tho.

[F For Fake]

On 2/27/2022 at 2:05 AM, Randall Dowling said:

I still have all of laserdiscs including a bunch of Criterion titles and some music documentaries.  I sold high end audio/video in the 90s and one of the stores I worked at rented LDs to incentivize purchasing players.  But the writing was on the wall as the Grand Alliance was working establishing the high definition standard for broadcast and media.  

I haven't looked at mine in years but they very much remind me of one of the reasons I like vinyl- the large size of the sleeves and the images, other content printed on them.  

I'm the same way, I love the presentation. I still have a small part of my old collection, due to nostalgia, and/or I just like the beautiful packaging. Some of the Disney box sets, stuff like that, are really beautiful. And I have some others framed. I don't WATCH my lasers very often, because 99% of the time, the picture quality has long since been surpassed. There are still a few titles that are only available on LD, and I know there are a lot of folks who have put money into upscaling equipment to improve the picture quality, but for me, it's not really worth the time and money, when most of the movies I care about are on BD or UHD. So yeah, it's mostly a nostalgia and collecting exercise, but I do still love the format for those reasons.

Now there are still a lot of folks who prefer the uncompressed AC3 soundtracks of the better LD releases, some of those rare DTS releases, and I get that. But my "good" LD player died, and my backup doesn't have AC3 out, and I don't care enough to track down another player at this point.

[Randall Dowling]

On 2/28/2022 at 9:01 AM, F For Fake said:

But my "good" LD player died, and my backup doesn't have AC3 out, and I don't care enough to track down another player at this point.

I'm in the exact same place...

[Joshua33]

On 2/26/2022 at 10:55 PM, Randall Dowling said:

Sony offered Betamax to other manufacturers but required a license fee for use.  JVC turned around and offered VHS for free use to all other vendors.  Other manufacturers ended up deciding to go with VHS and the content providers responded accordingly.

It's not as simple with Blu Ray though. I remember the battle of HD DVD vs Blu Ray well, mostly because of the gaming systems. It seems that Sony learned from their Beta Max mistakes. They offered their Blu Ray player in the Playstation platform whilst XBox offered the HD DVD player in their system. 

Sony went out and gobbled up all the Disney and big studio contracts, so that in the beginning, they had the best exclusive content. Meanwhile, HD DVD pretty much only had Paramount, so if you were a TomCruiseAHolic... great. If not, you really didn't have much.

[70s80sTimeMachine]

On 2/28/2022 at 11:36 AM, Joshua33 said:

It's not as simple with Blu Ray though. I remember the battle of HD DVD vs Blu Ray well, mostly because of the gaming systems. It seems that Sony learned from their Beta Max mistakes. They offered their Blu Ray player in the Playstation platform whilst XBox offered the HD DVD player in their system. 

Sony went out and gobbled up all the Disney and big studio contracts, so that in the beginning, they had the best exclusive content. Meanwhile, HD DVD pretty much only had Paramount, so if you were a TomCruiseAHolic... great. If not, you really didn't have much.

Indeed content is king. Depending on which stage of the HD revolution you joined you still basically didn't have much of a choice but to go with bluray. I remember when 4K first came out; my first concern was what kind of content I would have access to.

In contrast, beta had better resolution, better sound quality, more stable imaging and the hardware mechanically and quality wise was superior to VHS. So way back in the day as early adopters we actually had Betamax; it was not uncommon in those beginning days especially, to find this format in households.  

[70s80sTimeMachine]

On 2/28/2022 at 3:45 AM, Pitboss said:

VHS was the first mass "On Demand" service. A LOT of nostalgia for many including myself. That being said I wouldn't pay these prices. 

This is succinctly well put. For me the genesis of my VHS collecting all these years was never because I thought nor had a vision that I could slab them and sell/buy for uber high prices. It's merely another nostalgic portal for me to preserve and relive memories from a great time period now long ago. There is something from an historical artifact perspective that is personally appealing to me about slabs/cases for all of my collectibles.

And I will reiterate similar to comics, toys etc. same applies for VHS, LDs and so forth. It's not always about that end-game or actual experience of watching the movie. Rather the anticipation, excitement, stories, people, events that took place leading up to it.

During this time period when video rentals first came about and/or the cost went down to an affordable critical mass price point to purchase; it was a pretty big deal because your only viewing option before this was really renting a VHS movie or waiting/hoping for it to debut on HBO. At some point in the late 80s I want to say PPV was also in the mix but say late 70s/early 80s if you wanted to actually buy a popular/new release VHS movie (not a closeout) I want to say you would be looking at $100+ cost.