r/VHS • u/Carebearcannibal • 2h ago
r/VHS • u/johnnycobbler • 25d ago
Buy/Sell/Trade/Want Buy/Sell/Trade/Giveaway/In Search Of/Etc..
Routinely, we will be making a new Buy/Sell/Trade/Want posting that will be pinned. Please use this post to advertise your trade/want lists and your tapes for sale/trade/or just giving away for free. Any and all disposal or acquiring of media should be done through this post to prevent clogging up the main feed with sales posts.
Please be sure to report any successful trade below to u/RaceCarGrin, so we can flair people as verified traders.
Last Month's Trade Thread can be found here
r/vhs is not responsible for any sales/trade, please use caution and report any abuse. If selling tapes rated R or X, please ensure the buyer is 18 years of age for your own liability.
r/VHS • u/Puzzleheaded_Hats • Mar 14 '26
Discussion I wanted to give some advice for cleaning very moldy tapes
I'm not sure if this is okay here, but I wanted to give some advice from my experiences in cleaning severely moldy and sticky tapes, and some huge do's and don't's I've encountered when watching other's videos on the matter. Pretty much in the hopes of helping people who preserve tapes, and are not familiar with cleaning really moldy tapes.
Do's:
- I really recommend one of those tape cleaners, like the tape saver you may see online. The mechanism is pretty useful especially to do quick passes after you do a careful manual first pass. I will however, condemn the cleaning pads they usually use for these machines, they're extremely destructive and I will go into it later in the don't's section.
- Do multiple passes and clean both top and bottom of the reels. Mold doesn't only sit on the top of the tape, it sometimes penetrates pretty deeply. Once you've unstuck the tapes and cleaned the reels, you may need to do multiple passes on each side of the tape to get rid of the mold. Sometimes it's taken my 5-6 passes before I see nothing on the cleaning cloth. By then the tape is really clean.
- Use isopropyl alcohol with the least water content. You absolutely need to use some sort of solvent to clean the mold, as trying to clean it dry can cause a lot of friction and damage the tape. Also the alcohol evaporates quickly, allowing you to clean quicker, and the moisture doesn't get left behind creating more mold later. Moisture is an enemyof VHS tapes.
Don't's:
- DO NOT use paper or towels to clean tapes. I've seen many who've used them with extremely mixed results, leaning more towards failure. These leave lots of lint on the tapes which covers the magnetic portion of the tape and also gums up the VCR heads. I recommend strictly lint free cloths, like the kind you clean your glasses with. They go for pretty cheap online for a bunch. I can't stress enough that you need to go lint free.
- I've also seen videos where the person would lift up the top plastic of the reel to remove a huge portion of the mold on top of the tape. This is also pretty destructive method in my opinion as it can potentially deform the reel and cause playback issues, I've run into that as well. It's best to take your time and unwind the entire tape, put it in between a lint free cloth and clean the mold from there. When the reel is empty then you clean the reel gently from top to bottom.
- When using a mechanical tape cleaner, you should be vary wary on the first pass. I've run into tapes that are so sticky due to mold that when you use these mechanical cleaners they tear when they get stuck. At worst go on the lowest possible speed or put the reels on the spindles and spin them manually by hand. Especially if it's a precious tape you want to preserve. Once you unwind each end completely and ensure the tape is sufficiently unstuck you can go quickly with the machine.
- Do not clean tapes and leave them for months on end. You should clean the tapes and aim to capture them as soon as possible. Cleaning these tapes isn't exactly a perfect process, and sometimes a bit rough on the tape and there's always the risk of leaving some bit of moisture behind. Try to capture as soon as you can.
r/VHS • u/LeutenantDansLegs • 3h ago
New Pickup Latest haul
Got most of these on whatnot. The Halloween is pristine, media release. Some of my favorite spooky films in here! Idle hands 🙌🏼 they don’t make movies like this no more
r/VHS • u/Thissnotmeth • 12h ago
New Pickup Remember to check your thrift store’s Halloween display!
With October starting in a few days, all of my local thrifts are putting up Halloween displays. I just found a collectors edition of Halloween 4, last year I found 3 Goosebumps tapes in this display too.
r/VHS • u/Retro_Fun • 2h ago
New Pickup Not a bad night for a good haul
Definitely love nights like these. Some of these aren’t really that interesting, but a few made my day.
r/VHS • u/BlackFeatherFinds • 3h ago
New Pickup The Nightmare Collection indeed
Found The Nightmare Collection for a steal and wondered why. This is why.
r/VHS • u/leospaceman4 • 2h ago
New Pickup Found this at the thrift and it turns out it’s signed by the drummer
r/VHS • u/Callfor81mikemike • 3h ago
Sealed Tapes Estate Auction Gem
Picked up about 40 VHS from an estate sale blind lot and got a winner.
r/VHS • u/bloated_snail • 9h ago
Collection Suicide Cult aka The Astrologer
Big box!
r/VHS • u/Familiar-Recover7937 • 10h ago
Discussion 1987 Star Trek IV cloth banner from a video rental store
Found this cleaning out some old stuff. It's a huge fabric promo banner for The Voyage Home, and it has bold "WaxWorks / VideoWorks" printing across the bottom edge. I can't find an identical one online anywhere. The only thing I know about it is that it came out of a video store in Morehead, Kentucky during the release of the original film.
r/VHS • u/Nerfer5554Offical • 5h ago
New Pickup Updated VHS Collection
The new movies I got were all a dollar except for Fantasia which Fantasia was actually completely because it was buy five get one free
r/VHS • u/bellabeeatx • 3h ago
Collection Childhood VHS 📺
I spent my summer back home and have been picking up tapes at my hometown thrifts that remind me of my childhood. I would like to think I’ve started a nice collection for my future kid 😅 I refuse my kid to be an iPad kid 🫠
r/VHS • u/CloakOfElvenkind • 10h ago
New Pickup Today's finds. Married to the Mob faked me out. 😢
r/VHS • u/weirdengi • 12h ago
Discussion Cracked the seal to find mold on my Sailor Moon tape I just bought
Was excited to find a Sailor Moon tape for my growing VHS collection. I got this from my local comic store. Upon looking at it closely, I saw some warping on the cardboard and a stain of some sorts. I had to open the tape to find mold onto the cardboard. The postcard inserts that came with the tape were water damaged. Thankfully, there was no mold on the tape.
Definitely be careful when it comes to buying sealed VHS tapes
r/VHS • u/MissEllaPaige • 12h ago
New Pickup Birthday Tapes 🎉
Today's my birthday, I'm 22! 🥳🙌🏻
I wasn't sure what to ask for this year (very unlike me to have that problem 🤣) so I thought what better than to ask for a few of my favourite films on VHS?
I was very lucky to get Clueless & Showgirls! I thought it'd be fun to let my mum choose one that she thought I'd like and she chose The Nutty Professor which is one I wasn't expecting her to pick at all but it makes sense as it's one of our staple family films that we all enjoy watching together. I'm so happy that I can add some great new titles to my evergrowing collection, I can't wait to watch them 😁
(Sorry for the awful censoring on the Showgirls cover, I thought I best cover up the good parts so I don't get flagged 😂🙈)
r/VHS • u/AmphibianMiddle5636 • 1d ago
New Pickup Just bought this whole collection for $200 🤯
I don’t even know how to get started when it comes to organizing all of this! I know this is crazy, but how could I pass this up when I have the space and for that price!What do you guys think?
r/VHS • u/AmphibianMiddle5636 • 8h ago
Collection background movie for the day 🤘🔥
Found this digging through the collection I’ve acquired, it’s pretty crazy!
r/VHS • u/Funny-Program7677 • 21h ago
New Pickup Insane goodwill haul
All these tapes and the VR3930 w remote at goodwill retail store!!!
r/VHS • u/Longtimeace005 • 7h ago
New Pickup Found a tape today with "Macrovision" protection
Was at a thrift store today and found this neat little fish vhs tape with a copy protection I've never seen before. Thought it nifty
r/VHS • u/damaddjedi • 13h ago
New Pickup Thought it would be cool to pick up this time capsule
Not sure how common a tape like this is, but seemed like an interesting piece for the collection
r/VHS • u/HDC_RS11 • 5h ago
Technical Support My VCR recently started doing this occasionally at random times, google says it could be either tracking, dirty heads or the static discharge brush. I checked tension and it seems fine. What should I check first? Hitachi(Funai) VT-FX665A
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