Are There Any Vhs Tapes That Are Worth Money

I've got some bad news for you. Despite what y'all read on Facebook, your Disney videocassette tapes are not worth thousands of dollars. No, non fifty-fifty the "Rare," "Black Diamond" version your parents notwithstanding accept stashed in a closet. Heck, with Urban Outfitters at present selling a random 5-pack of tapes for $40, there must exist gold in them thar hills, correct? It'southward true that at that place are rare VHS tapes that are worth some significant money in the collector market, but dearest, your The Little Mermaid clamshell ain't one of 'em.

I thought about writing this commodity a while ago, simply later sitting on the thought for a few weeks, I heedlessly thought that the spate of misinformation had subsided. Notwithstanding, after my own local and well-respected Atlanta news station published this article I was forced into activity. No longer was this some clickbait post aimed at rubes in Podunk, USA. No, this imitation news was aimed at my friends and family who were already sharing the lies and dreaming of riches. The fourth dimension has finally come where I am called upon to put my knowledge of useless ephemera and odd collecting habits to use. Humanity needs me.

To give credit where credit is due, at that place are some truths embedded in the articles you lot see aimed at making you recall the tapes of your childhood will make yous a monocle-wearing VHS baron, merely permit'southward take a wait at them and interruption information technology all down.

Disney VHS Tapes are being listed on eBay for thousands of dollars.

This is true. There are listings for several Disney videos on eBay. And yeah, they are listed for thousands of dollars. Simply that's where it stops. They're only listed for auction at that price. Nobody is actually ownership those tapes for the cost of a used 2022 Toyota Camry. I tin dig out some umbilicus lint and put it on eBay for $20,000, but that doesn't mean it's actually worth that amount. List price isn't the same as selling price. To its credit, the well-nigh recent article I found does mention that fact, only the author has to know that the attention-grabbing headline minimizes this very of import item that most social media scrollers volition never carp to assimilate.

" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?fit=300%2C169&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?fit=1024%2C576&ssl=1" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-8713" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-8713" src="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=1200%2C675&ssl=1" alt="A lighted sign version of Disney's Black Diamond VHS logo " width="1200" height="675" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=300%2C169&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=768%2C432&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=1024%2C576&ssl=1 1024w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=400%2C225&ssl=1 400w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=600%2C338&ssl=1 600w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Black_Diamond.jpg?resize=800%2C450&ssl=1 800w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" data-recalc-dims="1">

Y'all know how convenience stores and bars accept "beer lights" or lighted signs to advertise Coors or Bud? Video stores had lighted signs advertising Disney's line of "The Classics." Here'south one from my personal collection. (Photo copyright: Preston Burt)

Disney has a "Blackness Diamond" label.

This is also true. Many of the most pop Walt Disney titles were published or rereleased under a line of tapes that featured a black diamond logo on the spine with the words"The Classics" emblazoned on height. Unlike the famously valuable upside-down biplane stamp or the F*** Face Billy Ripkin baseball card, these were not mistakenly printed. No, these popular titles were released purposefully. How many? I don't know. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands? Millions? Information technology's safe to say… a lot. In fact, I would venture a bet that if you or your family had more than two Disney VHS tapes during the '90s, at to the lowest degree one of them was of the (insert ominous music) "Blackness Diamond" variety.

OK, so if at that place's an element of truth to this, then how did it all become started?

Well, at that place was actually a indicate in time when certain Disney videos were worth a respectable corporeality of money. Information technology may exist hard to believe, but there was a time period before on-demand streaming allowed you to spotter what you want, when y'all want, and some entertainment backdrop were hard to come up past. In the new millennium, when DVDs were nevertheless relatively new to many families, there were many titles that existed only on VHS. Disney really had a slew of movies and cartoons that a generation of children grew up on that were no longer available (or what we onetime video store employees called OOP, or out of impress).

Sure, some of the classics similar Dense or Pinocchio had recently been ported over to a new VHS production in the tardily '90s, or some, like the previously mentioned The Little Mermaid had actually made the jump to DVD. However, if you wanted to watch Condorman, The Black Pigsty, or Darby O'Gill and the Little People, you lot were express to the first-run VHS clamshells Disney released way back in the early '80s during the get-go dwelling video smash.

By that post-millennium DVD era, video stores had generally gotten rid of those titles, so the just way to ease these nostalgic urges was to hit the collector market. (In 2001, I personally sold a used, original VHS re-create of The Gnome Mobile on eBay for shut to $300. Not anywhere virtually the declared $10,000 these "Black Diamond" VHS tapes are supposedly commanding, but nothing to sneeze at either.)

" data-medium-file="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?fit=300%2C185&ssl=1" data-large-file="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?fit=1024%2C631&ssl=1" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-8714" loading="lazy" class="size-full wp-image-8714" src="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?resize=1200%2C739&ssl=1" alt="Old Disney VHS tapes" width="1200" height="739" srcset="https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?w=1200&ssl=1 1200w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?resize=300%2C185&ssl=1 300w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?resize=768%2C473&ssl=1 768w, https://i0.wp.com/theroarbots.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/Disney_Clamshells.jpg?resize=1024%2C631&ssl=1 1024w" sizes="(max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px" data-recalc-dims="1">

These titles would take been long out of print and worth hundreds of dollars in the collector market in the early on 2000s, simply they weren't the "Black Diamond" diverseness.

One time those bottom-known titles finally made information technology to DVD, the price of those clunky VHS versions completely bottomed out. Unfortunately, some of that perceived value of VHS tapes gripped a big portion of the population and never let go. People believed they were sitting on a gold mine. The collector community still exists for those hard-to-find movies that yet only exist in videocassette form (Remember Rad, anyone?). Every bit those collectors searched listings for a diamond in the rough (no pun intended), they would repeatedly see people who were selling their totally common copies of The Lion King for waaaay besides much money. Those frustrated collectors with useless listings clogging up their searches reacted the only way they could: with sense of humor and a little bit of trolling.

Information technology's unclear when, merely in an attempt to poke fun at these ludicrous values placed on copies of 101 Dalmatians and The Rescuers Downwardly Under, collectors started posting imitation eBay listings for these supposedly "rare" VHS movies for hundreds and fifty-fifty thousands of dollars. They even added to the mystique of these "priceless wonders" (of which millions of Americans owned at least 3 each) by designating them with the sectional sounding "Black Diamond" moniker. However, instead of recognizing a joke, ordinary people saw these listings and thought that they too should go far on the action. Though the jokesters are probably long gone, nosotros are now in a continuous cycle of people trying to sell their dollar-bin movies for exorbitant prices, while "journalists" pick up the story of ordinary people potentially sitting on a VHS goldmine. And that's information technology.

Walt Disney's Pete's Dragon VHS tapes. One vintage, and one promo for the remake

Walt Disney knows the appeal and nostalgia of their clamshell VHS tapes. A few years agone, they even sent promotional copies of the new Pete's Dragon remake to press in VHS-style clamshells that independent digital codes. Hither, the original release is on the left with the new promo on the right. (Photograph copyright: Preston Burt)

For what it's worth, I all the same collect VHS tapes. In that location are yet plenty of movies (especially really quirky ones) that were but always released on the now-dead format. With well-nigh VHS tapes available in austerity store bins for a dollar or less, information technology is a hobby that provides a cracking "thrill of the hunt" vibe while beingness an affordable access to entry. Unfortunately, if you're looking to become rich, VHS tapes aren't your reply. If you lot grew upwards watching any of those "Black Diamond" Disney movies, the value isn't in the tape itself but rather the (hopefully) fond memories yous have watching them.

Those? Yep. They're priceless.