Can you honestly tell me the last time you saw a VCR tape for sale in a store? No really, I’ll give you a few minutes to think about it, go ahead.
My point here is that VCR tapes are kind of like 8-track cassettes. Nobody cares about them and for the most part, people are glad that they are gone.
That having been said, there were millions of them produced over the years.
On top of that, there are a lot of movies that were put on VCR tapes that never made the transition to DVD.
It could be because nobody had an interest in making the investment in remastering them or that the studio didn’t think that there would be large enough of a demand for them if they rereleased the movie on DVD.
However, in this mix of VCR tapes that never made it to DVD you are going to have a large number of movies that are affectionately known as “Cult Classics.”
These are movies that developed a large following after the movie was out of theaters and released on tape.
These are the hidden gems in VCR tape world and it’s these kinds of movies that you might really have something with if you are looking to pawn your VCR tapes.
That having been said, not all pawn shops will take VCR tapes in on loan or even offer to buy them and there’s some good reasons for that.
Not all pawn shops buy VCR tapes but there are some out there that will look at what you have to see if they can make you an offer on them.
How Pawn Shops Look At VCR Tapes
When we are talking about VCR tapes here, we are talking about an outdated technology for which can’t really be used since virtually nobody has a VCR player in their homes or office anymore.
That’s just the nature of things – in with the new and out with the old.
So when a pawn shop sees a box full of VCR tapes roll into their front door, often times they will immediately disregard them as not being something that they are really willing to work with because, quite frankly, most of them aren’t worth anything.
But with that in mind, as we’ve discussed, there are these cult classics out there that do have a following and as a result are worth some money.
Now, while not all pawn shops know this, the smart ones will and those are the pawn brokers that may invest a few minutes in looking through what you have to see if there is anything that they can work with in your collection.
Now with that in mind, let’s talk about some rules for pawning VCR tapes and how to go about doing it so that you get the most money possible for yours.
How To Pawn VCR Tapes
Okay, by now you should have a good understanding of what an average pawn shop might be thinking when they see you roll in with your box of old, outdated tapes. Normally it’s nothing good unfortunately, but like we said, that’s not always the case.
Finding A Pawn Shop That Will Take Them – The first thing that you are going to have to do on your quest to pawn VCR tapes is actually find a pawn shop in your area that will take them in.
Now the best way to go about doing that is just to go to Google.com and search the phrase “Local Pawn Shops.” Google will give you a list of pawn shop in your area along with their phone numbers.
This next part is going to be painful for some people I already know, but what you need to do is actually (GASP!) call the shops to see if they are willing to look at what you have. By doing this, you could end up saving yourself and lot of time and frustration by not physically driving from pawn shop to pawn shop to find one that will take the time to look at your VCR tapes.
Make Sure They Play – The next thing that you need to do is make sure that your tapes will actually play. VCR tapes aren’t like DVDs that can seem to play for an unlimited number of times. Tapes are a physical, magnetic medium and as a result will eventually wear out over time.
You’ve got to keep this in mind and it is probably something that a pawn shop will be very concerned with because let’s face it, they aren’t making a whole lot of new VCR tapes these days. The ones that are out there are aging and are venerable to the elements.
Try To Find The Sleeves – The next thing that you will want to do if possible is to try to find the sleeves for those tapes and make sure that you have them with you.
Even if the sleeve is in bad condition, having any sleeve is often better than having no sleeve so it can very much be worth your time to track these things down if you can.
If you keep these things in mind, you should have a the best experience possible when attempting to pawn or sell your VCR tapes.
