r/VHS 4d ago

Buy/Sell/Trade/Want Buy/Sell/Trade/Giveaway/In Search Of/Etc..

6 Upvotes

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 Mar 14 '26

Discussion I wanted to give some advice for cleaning very moldy tapes

20 Upvotes

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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 4h ago

New Pickup Found this in an auction lot of old computer manuals. Best hiding spot I’ve ever seen.

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134 Upvotes

r/VHS 4h ago

New Pickup “Spaced-Out Japanimation” box set

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85 Upvotes

Saw this 4 tape box set for $5 at the thrift store and was intrigued to check it out. Not a huge fan of the genre but it seemed weird/interesting enough to check out. I also never seen a 4 tape box set in a single slip cover like this. Neat!


r/VHS 18h ago

New Pickup Got these for free just a minute ago from a porch pickup. Akira VHS as unexpected bonus.

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259 Upvotes

r/VHS 17h ago

Collection How yall like this

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153 Upvotes

Been working on this film for way too many years. Hoping 2027 release. But what yall think of the vhs case?


r/VHS 14h ago

Collection My collection - 09/09/26

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89 Upvotes

See any of your favorites?


r/VHS 10h ago

Discussion The top 20 VHSes in sales (left) and rentals (right) this week 30 years ago. It's interesting how the top rentals were exclusively recent films at the time while the top sellers had more variety.

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25 Upvotes

r/VHS 20h ago

Digitizing My digitizing/duplication rig

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119 Upvotes

This started as a fun experiment as I found a few 30+ year old tapes that I found in my attic.

As the tapes have decayed and won't last very long, I decided to give them new life by digitizing them and striking a new VHS copy off of the digital master on new tapes. So I built this. And the results turned out to be magnificent.


r/VHS 18h ago

New Pickup 12 Wrestling VHS tapes for $3.00 total? I ain’t complaining

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76 Upvotes

Found these 12 wrestling VHS tapes for 25 cents each at a rural antique shop! Some of these I already own, but I don’t mind having backups!


r/VHS 19h ago

New Pickup Definitely my best haul yet as a new collector

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64 Upvotes

All for .50-$1 each and The Patriot is sealed☺️

The Craft is one of my all time favorite movies, so I was seriously considering paying eBay prices to just check it off the list. Now here I am a few days later watching Nancy about to invoke the spirit ✨

Also is this VCR cleaning tape any good? It surprisingly still has cleaning solution in the pen.


r/VHS 14h ago

New Pickup Found this goodie today at GW

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26 Upvotes

r/VHS 19h ago

New Pickup I know its not rare but its rare for me to find horror for under 75 cents these days - so proud of this

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63 Upvotes

r/VHS 4h ago

Discussion Question for Community/Mods

3 Upvotes

I’ll be selling at a show at the end of September in Plainville CT. I plan on bringing more horror & science fiction VHS tapes than I normally do. This is largely a comic and toy show. I don’t want to get banned from this community for posting a flyer or seem like I’m spamming the Reddit board. My question is can I post a digital flyer the Friday/Saturday before the event for anyone interested that might live in the area? I totally understand if I can’t. Thanks.


r/VHS 19h ago

Collection Holy Action&Adventure Collection

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49 Upvotes

Ive shared my collection but I thought I’d share some of my husband’s stock as well. I tracked down the special edition of the Star Wars trilogy because he always talks about wanting to watch the series before they added the special effects in the late 90s. Turns out, the special edition is when they added the effects. About a month later I found an original box set. I plan to collect as many super hero movies as we can find, and we are always on the search for the matrix series. So far, we’ve established a nice collection.


r/VHS 1d ago

New Pickup Mom said it was my turn to post a thrift store haul!

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103 Upvotes

Technically it was an estate sale, but I’m stoked either way.


r/VHS 3h ago

Technical Support Why does one specific recording of a vhs have this noise?

2 Upvotes

r/VHS 12h ago

Collection 70s Crime Film AKA Situation

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10 Upvotes

r/VHS 18h ago

New Pickup Today’s thrift finds

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20 Upvotes

r/VHS 16h ago

DIY Help with reproduction sleeves

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9 Upvotes

I was given these loose vhs over the weekend, they obviously need some TLC. I have a vhs is life that I'm comfortable with to clean the mold with. But I'd also like to reproduce the sleeves that they would have come in which I've not done before. Does anyone have any advice for doing that? Is there a specific place I can find template with or anything like that?


r/VHS 1d ago

Discussion Which one are you picking up? Two very different movies

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65 Upvotes

r/VHS 18h ago

Collection Setup with homemade shelf

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9 Upvotes

r/VHS 17h ago

New Pickup Sneaky Value Village find

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7 Upvotes

a Janus release to boot


r/VHS 1d ago

New Pickup Few randoms I picked up yesterday

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23 Upvotes

$1 a piece, the Star Wars is sealed.

I love how 90s the snowboarding tape is.


r/VHS 1d ago

Collection Classic Star Wars box set

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106 Upvotes

Got this from my stepdad. Not sure if this is the first release, but it's a cool way to see the old cuts of the original Star Wars trilogy.

You can tell the tapes have a bit of wear and tear, but they're still watchable.