Your childhood VHS collection could be worth a fortune

DUSTIN JONESSeptember 15, 2023

One person’s analog trash is another person’s vintage treasure.

If you have a stack of VHS tapes that haven’t been touched since digital media began, you could potentially make a fortune from them.

Blockbuster video cassettes are obviously a relic of a bygone era, as technology shifted from VHS to DVDs and Blu-Ray and now to streaming – but they are still popular with some cult cinema collectors.

Many are betting shocking amounts on eBay, including classic films like Back to the Future and even newer cult films like the original Fast and the Furious.

However, simply listing a VHS on eBay doesn’t guarantee you’ll make a lot of money – the condition has to be top notch.

VHS tapes degrade 10 to 20% in quality over 10 to 25 years, and some recordings may become distorted with age. According to the pros at Kodak. Tapes have a short lifespan due to the remanence decay of the magnetic charge, resulting in discoloration, blackened scenes, and ultimately complete loss of footage.

Other conditions that accelerate the deterioration of VHS cassettes include storage in hot or humid environments, storage near magnetic sources, cheap or inferior cassettes, frequent rewinding and playing of the cassette, and being at the cassette is a second or third generation recording copy.

Kodak recommends storing VHS tapes in a cool and dry place “with little to no climate change” to keep them in the best possible condition – although even under the best conditions they will eventually expire.

That means your much-loved bright orange VHS of The Rugrats Movie might not be the one that gets you paid. However, some titles are auctioned with starting bids in the thousands.

It’s unclear how many of these mint cassettes actually sold for large Dollars – but online shoppers are definitely bidding on them and buying them. In fact, many of the sellers did this “100% Positive Feedback” Rankings.

The post has reached out to eBay for comment rising retro trend.

After perusing the aisles on eBay, here are some of Thursday’s most expensive deals on VHS movie titles.