(New York) Until now confined to modest prices, for those who managed to sell them, the market for second-hand video cassettes has taken off in recent months, a heat stroke attributed to nostalgia, but also to the investors’ appetite for new investments.
Posted at 11:15 a.m.
During the same sale, organized at the beginning of June by Heritage Auctions, a VHS cassette of Back to the future went for $75,000, while a copy of the Sea teeth left for $32,500, and another of Rambo for 22,500.
Cassettes have had their circle of collectors since the first copies were released in the late 1970s, but today, for almost all of them, “VHS are worth almost nothing”, assures John, resident of Newmarket in Canada, which says it has sold about 3,000 in over 20 years. “You’ll be lucky if you get $5 out of it. »
Only certain confidential horror films, or feature films available only on this medium, have so far managed to do better, at a few hundred dollars, or even above a thousand.
But these are now the blockbusters which have the wind in their sails, in particular the big hits of the first half of the 80s, provided that the cassettes meet certain criteria.
A VHS from the first edition of a film placed on the market, in its original unopened packaging, will be more interesting, as will a special series produced in small numbers, which automatically excludes most of the existing stock. , in particular the funds of former video rental companies.
Star Warsreleased in theaters in 1977, the year the first video cassettes were marketed in the United States, is a current benchmark and has already seen several sales exceed $10,000.
The Grail would be a copy taken from the very first American delivery of VHS, being the films M. AS H., Patton and The melody of happinessreleased in 1977 by 20th Century Fox studio and Magnetic Video.
The price ? “It’s really hard to say. I would say a six-digit number, or even seven, “said Jay Carlson, director of the VHS activity at Heritage Auctions, a position created only a few months ago.
“A special object”
Many, including long-time collectors, wonder about the sudden acceleration of this market, 16 years after the last release of a film in this format (A History of Violence), VCRs not being produced since 2016.
“I think it has a lot to do with nostalgia,” says Philip Baker, who runs the Video Collector site. “What makes VHS special is that it was the first accessible way to watch a film at home. »
Pat Contri, who co-hosts the podcast Completely Unnecessary, sees in this movement a parallel with video games. Long-time collectors have been superimposed “people who have just decided to get into it. They said to themselves: I have money, let’s invest in it”.
For ten years, several families of objects have thus been attacked by individuals looking to diversify their investments, whether it be sneakers, video games, or now video cassettes.
For a new generation of collectors sensitive to their cultural value, these items have replaced stamps or coins.
Dedicated Facebook groups, multiplication of rating services, which assess the authenticity and quality of a cassette, auction houses on the go, the collectible VHS industry is structured at breakneck speed.
Pat Contri is wary of this organized fever. “It’s similar to what’s happened in the video game market,” he says, “where instead of letting a hobby develop naturally, you try to instill the fear of missing out. something” and miss an opportunity to make a lucrative investment.
“There are people who collect open (already used) cassettes and are very skeptical of the ones on the (still boxed copies)”, admits Jay Carlson, “but I think (this movement ) is a good thing. […] It’s just a different way of collecting. »
For him, the market potential of video cassettes is greater than that of video games, which saw, last year, two sales exceed one million dollars.
“I know a lot of people who aren’t into video games,” he says, “but I don’t know a lot of people who don’t have a favorite movie. »