VHS Tapes…Here We Go Again
VHS Tapes…Here We Go Again
I was recently quoted in an article titled “Your VHS Tapes May be Worth a Small Fortune.” Please note, that title did not come from me. In fact, the paragraph after my quote states that “VHS tapes have yet to prove themselves as big earners on the auction block. [emphasis added]” It may have originated from the marketing of an upcoming Texas-based auction house’s sale of VHS tapes.
There are many people wondering how to turn their old VHS tapes into a profit, I know because they emailed me. Sadly, there just isn’t a lot of evidence that there is a huge profit to be made.
Here is what I was quoted, correctly, as saying when asked why there might be a secondary market for VHS tapes:
“There is some new Gen X and millennial interest in re-visiting the technology and media of their youth,” Megan Mahn Miller, an appraiser of entertainment memorabilia based in Minneapolis, told Nexstar. “You can see the same thing happening with old video games and Pokémon cards.”
Here are additional responses to the journalist’s questions that were unused in the article:
1. What makes one tape more desirable than another?
If it is still sealed. If it some terrible b-movie that never made it beyond the VHS medium onto DVD. For a movie like “Star Wars” that was remastered and recut, the original may be more appealing to hard core fans. Or if there is a misprint or something “off” about a cover (think “The Little Mermaid” from Disney) and the cover was pulled off the shelf and replaced – that could be of interest to a buyer.
2. What are some of the more valuable examples? How much do they go for?
Honestly, it is difficult to know exactly what they are selling for if you are just looking at a marketplace like eBay. On that platform people are self-reporting results and these don’t mean there were verifiable sales. It may look like “black diamond” Disney VHS’s are valuable but that isn’t the reality. Although, it all depends on what “valuable” means to you. If you can sell an item that you have had since the 1980s for $5 – maybe that is valuable to you.
To really know what prices the VHS’s are getting you will get a better idea by looking at the results auction houses are getting. In April 2022, a New Jersey auction house sold a group of eight Disney VHS for $25. Three of the group were “black diamond.” That’s about $3 a tape minus the auction houses commission. The debunking website Snopes looked into the “black diamond” VHS’s and debunked the myth.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/black-diamond-collection-disney/
3. Where are the most popular places to buy/sell?
Because of the relatively low value, I would advise people to sell the items themselves at a reasonable price. You can make a small return on your investment. If say, you find a sealed tape at your local thrift store for $0.99 and sell it for $5 or $10 – that a great return. On a platform like eBay, the public will tell you what the item is worth. Someone may be interested and buy a VHS for 100s of dollars, but that would be the exception – not the rule.
If you need more information about the value of your VHS tapes consider subscribing to a services such as WorthPoint.