Once every few months I like to visit the local car-boot sales in search of rare VHS tapes, but all you ever seem to find these days are Cinema Club and 4Front re-released titles. The sort of titles that you can find almost anywhere and worthless to any serious collector.
Some great films were re-released under those two labels but i’ve only ever been interested in the original release, mainly pre-cert. If you’re having a good day you might find the odd one obscure tape. But it would appear that these days most people know the true value of VHS, and you only have to do a quick search on ebay to confirm those suspicions. So imagine my delight when I happened upon two market traders with a transit van load of obscure tapes.
I picked up one tape that I knew was rare, and the guy looked at me and told me to pick a few more and then he’d do me an amazing deal, even offering the lot to me for £20. It quickly became apparent that this guy knew nothing about VHS and was just happy to get rid of them all. I grabbed an empty crate and began to fill my basket like the happy shopper I am. I frantically grabbed as many titles as I could but just couldn’t contain the inner excitement, my Wife said I was shaking. I just knew I had to move fast because that particular car-boot is littered with collectors. Maybe they wouldn’t be interested in many of the films but it’s a chance I wasn’t prepared to take.
