You could be sitting on a fortune if you have some old VHS tapes. Here’s how to cash in
Are you one of the millions who bought VHS tapes of golden era and more contemporary Walt Disney movies back in the ‘80s and ‘90s?
Some of us can relate to taking the tape out of the long plastic box and sharing a viewing of “Pinocchio,” “Alice in Wonderland” or “Beauty and the Beast” with our families.
But are you one of the few who held on to these old tapes? If so, you could be sitting on a small fortune that would make the star of Disney’s “$1,000,000 Dollar Duck” worth his feathers in gold bars.
According to Thomas Perella of eBay’s content team, there is “surprising value” in certain old VHS tapes.
Credit nostalgia, he said. The primary reasons include the nostalgia factor, Disney collectors, and the format itself, Perella explained.
“Some people are flocking to stuff from the ‘80s and ‘90s. Not only VHS but flip phones, Atari, and lots of other things,” he said. “Some of these people are willing to spend tons for Disney items. Some VHS’s aren’t available in other formats. This is mostly true for more ‘niche’ items or things that came out before 1970.”
Florida collectors paid big
This year, a VHS copy of the 1998 Disney animated movie “Mulan” sold to a collector in Deltona for $21,111.
In 2017, “Aladdin,” originally released on home video on VHS in 1992, went for $28,000 to a Tampa buyer.
And also in Tampa in 2017, the 1951 Disney version of “Alice in Wonderland” fetched $10,000 on VHS.
In fact, according to a new proprietary data study conducted by eBay, several VHS format titles sold for more than $10,000. And of the 25 most expensive VHS tapes sold on eBay since 2017, 22 of them have been Disney movies,” Perella told the Miami Herald.
“Anyone who happens to have a Black Diamond Edition of “Beauty and the Beast” could be sitting on a gold mine,” he said.
How does $60,000 sound? That’s a beaut for this “Beast.”
VHS sales up, DVD, Blu-ray down
And eBay reports that VHS tape sales have consistently grown more than 5% each year since 2016, and are projected to grow by 10% in 2020.
Meantime, Blu-ray and DVD sales on eBay started to fall in 2019 by about 5% and the decline is expected to hit 10% for DVDs in 2020 and 5% for Blu-rays, which offer a considerably brighter, more stable image and fidelity.
Non-Disney titles that far bested their original selling price of $29 to $79 at Spec’s and Video Extra in the 1980s include “Jaws” ($468), the complete original “Star Trek” series ($300), and horror and/or slasher films like “Halloween,” “Friday the 13th,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “The Exorcist.”
A sealed VHS copy of “Texas Chainsaw,” for instance, sold for $4,900 on eBay. “The Exorcist,” that devilish film with Linda Blair from 1973, heaved up $325 for its VHS edition.
Not all VHS tapes command you to take out a second mortgage to invest in one of them. Most VHS tapes for sale on eBay ask for as little as $5, for, say, a used copy of the Patrick Swayze/Whoopi Goldberg comedy, “Ghost.”
How to improve your odds of cashing in
Accent on the word “used.” These big buck-fetching VHS tapes are unopened.
And if not sealed, at the very least, not played, freeze-framed and rewound a gazillion times.
“I do believe that most, if not all, of the VHS tapes that fetched the very high prices were in very good or mint condition,” eBay’s Perella said.
The average cost of a secondhand VHS tape is about $11, according to eBay.
“If your dog chewed the case or the kids scribbled all over it, it’s probably not worth much. However, if you have the right edition in mint condition, you may be surprised at what collectors will pay,” eBay said in its study report.
It also helps if you have a sealed title of a VHS tape people really want. Feed off nostalgia and hope you once dug Disney animated films.
For whatever reason, some of those Disney editions are hot with collectors. Part of the reason could be that while titles like “Aladdin,” “Beauty and the Beast,” “Mulan” and others were sold in the millions, Disney movies were also marketed in the format for a limited time.
This marketing gimmick closed the window on collecting rather quickly, and boosted the demand for a mint “Beauty and the Beast” over titles that were available on store shelves for years like “Ghost” and “Back to the Future” and “The Poseidon Adventure.”
Why VHS tapes have new popularity
So why the craze for VHS tapes?
“The resurgence of films from the ‘80s (embodied by series like ‘Stranger Things’) indicates a longing for simpler times: GenXers want to relive these days and Millennials want to experience them,” eBay said in its study. “Nostalgia is causing the value of some VHS copies to skyrocket and, as a consequence, collectors are flocking to eBay to grab a piece of the past.”
Netflix, in fact, tapped into the phenom by packaging its recently released Blu-ray edition of “Stranger Things” in a replica of an ‘80s era VHS tape box for sale at Target. The horror show’s first three seasons were set in the 1980s and feature the pop songs of the era on the soundtrack (released on vinyl, by the way).
Ditto FX’s recently wrapped ninth season of “American Horror Story,” titled “AHS: 1984” that spoofed that year’s horror movies like “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter” and Jane Fonda aerobic workout tapes on VHS.
Another factor: Many movies and TV shows produced before 2000 still only exist in the old VHS format.
“This explains why forgotten favorites like ‘The Joy of Painting’ and ‘Wild America,’ as well as workout tapes such as Susan Powter’s ‘Stop the Insanity!’ and Richard Simmons’ ‘Reach for Fitness’ are among the top-selling copies on eBay,” the online marketplace company said.
This story was originally published December 12, 2019 at 6:20 AM.
