• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

Well I did make it to that estate sale. Four tapes found, and all four were keepers. Apparently this house has NOT been occupied since at least the end of 2003! Everything was dirty, dusty and some items were full of gunk - ick. But it was loaded with all kinds of collectibles. The tapes were fast-forwarded and rewound on the external rewinder that I have, before playing, to prevent dirty heads. No mold on them thank goodness. There was also a shed outside that was full of parts, paint, water seal, old coffee cans of nails, and (prior to cleaning) tons of black widow spiders...ouch! They are common in barns and under houses out here.

Tape 1 - 'Blood Alley' (1955) and part of 'The Sea Chase' (1955) taped off TNT 11/5-6/1995 with commercials; part of Melrose Place and a few minutes of Partners taped off KCPQ/Fox 10/9/1995 with commercials; part of 'Beethoven' (1993) taped off KCPQ/Fox 10/11/1995 with commercials (90210 and Party of Five were preempted due to what should have been O.J. Simpson's interview on NBC, before he cancelled it.) Maxell T-120
Tape 2 - Starts with a couple minutes of Playmakers taped off ESPN 10/21/2003, then cuts over to the Los Angeles Kings vs. Philadelphia Flyers NHL game taped off Fox Sports West the same night with commercials (through NHL Center Ice, they actually left FSN's commercials intact); ends with about 40 minutes of Richard Simmons' Sweatin to the Oldies copied from a tape, and the rest of the tape (about half of it) is blank. Scotch T-120
Tape 3 - American Playhouse: Long Shadows, Robert Post's Vaudeville and a couple minutes of Job Find taped off KYVE/PBS 8/24/1994 with a couple of intershows. Maxell T-120
Tape 4 - Final round coverage of the Senior PGA Tour Bell Atlantic Classic, Billiards coverage (the Ultimate 9-Ball challenge from Walt Disney World's Epcot Center), the PWBA WIBC Queens Bowling Open, time trials for the Indy 500 (well, rain-delayed), half-hour broadcasts of SportsCenter, and part of Baseball Tonight taped off ESPN 5/23/1999 with commercials; partially taped-over KIMA News at 5, CBS Evening News and some of KIMA News at 6 taped off KIMA/CBS 4/14/1999 with commercials. Scotch T-120
 
I subscribed to FruitJuice Media's YouTube account. Sioux City is market 152, so he's got some good finds. The smaller the market, the more obscure the local content (newscasts, ads for local businesses and services, etc.) Probably the nearest 100+ market to me would have to be Steubenville/Wheeling, which I have found a small amount of footage from (WTOV and WTRF). The smallest market in Ohio, however, would have to be Lima, from which I have one tape of content from WLIO (couple of episodes of Will & Grace from 2003).

Tomorrow is the Hinckley Community Garage Sales, which I did pretty well at last year. More than 100 homes in the township participating, along with rummage sales at a couple of churches and a flea market in the parking lot of the local elementary school. Also saw an ad for an estate sale somewhere in the town--they sure picked the right day to have it!
 
It was fun going down to Zillah's big one earlier this year, but only one house out of 90-something homes delivered any tapes. Too many baby clothes, clothes in general, toys, and household junk.
The smallest market I have found a tape from was Helena, MT (market 205!!) St. Joseph, Great Falls and Butte-Bozeman follow. I'm in market #114 as it is, so no wonder every local item I find has rare all over it.
 
crainbebo said:
I don't think the FL seller posts anything to YouTube. Anything I've seen from those videos comes from Michael Pannoni whenever he gets the chance to win those lots. Too bad I don't have a lot of $$$ right now because I would bid on the lot currently up for auction with KTVF Fairbanks content from 1987 on one of the tapes! Talk about RARE! I think the same lot also has some late 1980s Seattle items as well, they are always welcome to the collection. Maybe this summer I'll take a road trip up to the record store in downtown Everett where I've found gold mines of Seattle programming on VHS. It's been about 5 years but the store is still open and the owner still roosts every Sunday at the checkout desk. If I can dig through the boxes, maybe I'll bring home two Northwest Afternoon tapes that I unfortunately left...they were master copies duplicated at KOMO-TV, one from 1999 as I recall. (As long as they still have those VHS tapes stocked somewhere!)
There's several sales tomorrow including the Tancara neighborhood yard sales - this is where I found the 1988 Kennedy Center Honors, 'Foxfire,' my oldest Hallmark Hall of Fame movie taped 12/13/87, and lots of early-mid '00s Yakima TV clips with commercials/newscasts, last June.
Click to expand...

What is the name of that store again? If I am in the area, I would love to go there and check out what they have. I love record stores anyway and there is a girl in Everett thst I like and if I come and visit her, I might want to go there and get some videos as well as some CDs of love song compilations that I want to dance and romance with her to.
 
Scott2013 said:
Some finds from a garage sale in Brunswick yesterday--four keepers out of five total tapes.

TAPE 1: Most of an episode of The Amazing Race and partial episode of Judging Amy taped from WOIO on 12/14/2004 with commercials; last hour of The Librarian: Quest for the Spear (made-for-TV movie) and part of Batman (1989) taped from TNT on December 5-6, 2004 with commercials; part of the fourth quarter of Cleveland Browns vs. New England Patriots, Subway Postgame Show and start of CBS Sports Spectacular taped from WOIO on 12/5/2004 with commercials; few minutes of Love, Lust & Marriage: Why We Stray and Why We Stray (ABC special hosted by John Stossel) taped from WEWS on 8/30/1998 with a few commercials. Maxell T-120.

TAPE 2: Partial episode of Full House, episodes of Doogie Howser M.D., The Simpsons, Roseanne and partial episode of Legend taped from WUAB on 5/16/1995 with commercials; episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and first few minutes of part one of The Secret Of... (UPN miniseries hosted by Lindsay Wagner and Blair Underwood) taped from WUAB on 5/22/1995 with commercials; part of Needful Things (1993) and part of Consenting Adults (1992) taped from Showtime in January 1995 with 13 minutes of promos in between. Memorex T-120.

TAPE 3: Grumpier Old Men (1995), Jumanji (1995) and Goldeneye (1995) taped from SpectraVision sometime in 1996 with commercials and promos in between the movies. My understanding based on what little I've found out about this network was that it was a TV service used in hotels, so this is definitely a rarity. Maxell T-120.

TAPE 4: Five and a half hours of CNN coverage of Princess Diana's funeral and burial taped on 9/6/1997, some commercial breaks are found during the post-funeral coverage; partial episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine taped from WUAB sometime in summer 1997 with a few commercials. TDK T-120.
Click to expand...


Gee, I wonder how they were allowed to bring a VCR into the hotel! SpectraVision was referenced in an early episode of Married with Children When Al wanted to watch the fight and Steve told him it was available at the come and go motel.
 
Scott, did you have any success with the Hinckley sales? I haven't seen any new things on your account yet.
There was a moving sale yesterday and I found two more tapes for 50c a piece. One was a dud (2 rental copies, one, 'Taking Care of Business,' had the opening previews even). The other had The World of Peter Rabbit & Friends and Madeline in London taped off Family Channel in 1994 or 1995 with commercials; an episode of the Japanese Pinocchio cartoon off HBO (no promos), and about an hour of NHL hockey off KAPP with commercials before it went blank. 1994 or 1995, but I need to research further. Too bad there wasn't more. It was marked 'grandkids tape' and I was hoping for some Sat morning cartoons or Nickelodeon stuff. $$$!
 
I ended up not going to the Hinckley sales because the weather was bad. Hopefully I'll still have some more luck before winter rolls around.

Did ABC have the rights to NHL games in the mid '90s? I only remember them doing so around the early 2000s or so.

For curiosity's sake, I did a little browsing on eBay. One thing I've noticed is there are a few people selling these recorded tapes in individual listings rather than in lots. I saw about 75 listings for individual tapes from one seller in Georgia. I personally think they would have more luck getting people to buy them if they were in lots of about 25 or so in one listing. This seller has tapes recorded from the Atlanta area and from the Greenville/Spartanburg market in South Carolina.

Another seller I've been seeing doing the same thing hails from Redmond, Oregon (Bend market), but from older listings I've seen on his/her page, some of them were taped outside of Oregon. Believe it or not, this seller even has a listing for a tape recorded just last month from KTVZ Channel 21.3 (supposed to have episodes of Family Guy, Bob's Burgers, the local news and a rerun of The Big Bang Theory). Hard to believe people are still using VCRs to record TV shows on VHS tapes. Most of his/her other listings, of course, are much older tapes.
 
Last edited:
chandler0201 said:
Converting torrents back to VHS tapes? Pretty ballsy there, but shoddy, if you were smart you would get old stock blank tapes to match the year of the recordings, not 2003.
Click to expand...

Sorry, just though the link might have been of interest.
 
MikaelaArsenault said:
Sorry, just though the link might have been of interest.
Click to expand...

No it is a very interesting link indeed, I was just commenting on the less than honest nature of some sellers on Ebay. Some of the better "re-piraters" as I call them, even use old Beta and VHS tape stock to copy already found material from torrents and Youtube sites to try to make it look authentic. I expect this trend will only get worse as the popularity of home recorded VHS lots becomes more valuable.
 
At least with me, every tape I sell on eBay is genuine. No copies, or re'pirating'. While I may have uploaded all the commercials to YouTube, the tape dates to 1992, or 1998, or whenever the recording dated to. I'm heading to an estate sale this weekend in Yakima where it's supposed to have a bunch of tapes (in addition to tons of collectible items). I'm also considering this *69*-tape lot out of the Modesto area on eBay where the seller's grandpa was taping something almost 24/7. Sitcom reruns (old and new), Jay Leno, Politically Incorrect, Geraldo, crime dramas, PBS cooking shows, Xena, you name it. This will be a gold mine if I get it.
 
Three tapes found at a yard sale today in Yakima. All out-of-market recordings, from a familiar market to all of us:

Tape 1 - 'Love in Another Town' (1997) taped off WOIO-19 Cleveland/CBS on 10/19/1997 with commercials and first several minutes of their 11:00 newscast, featuring the Indians' win in game 2 of the World Series over the Marlins (My first find from Cleveland, hi Scott!); part of Welcome Home Heroes with Whitney Houston taped off HBO on Easter 1991; rest of tape consists of an aircheck of CMT taped in early 1991 with commercials...oldest find yet from Country Music Television. Memorex T-120
Tape 2 - Starts with a couple of random commercial breaks from a broadcast of ABC World News Tonight; then cuts to Bugs Bunny & Pals and coverage of NBA All-Star Saturday taped off TNT 2/20/1993 with commercials; and ends with part of The Main Event (wrestling) taped off WKYC/NBC 2/3/1989 with commercials. BASF T-120
Tape 3 - The Miss Howard Stern New Year's Eve Pageant taped off Request Television on 12/31/1993-1/1/1994 with a long intershow afterwards; whoever recorded it changes it to the last several minutes of The Nature of Things taped off Discovery Channel the same night with commercials, then the tape goes blank. Fuji T-120

Apparently the couple used to live in Stow, Ohio, just northeast of Akron, which explains the recordings.
 
Last edited:
Nice finds from the Cleveland market! Those ought to be cool to see! If I'm not mistaken, Gretchen Carlson was still anchoring on WOIO in October of '97, although October 19 fell on a Sunday that year and she was on during the week. I actually have that night's Wonderful World of Disney presentation of the Sabrina the Teenage Witch movie taped from WEWS.

I also found that Howard Stern New Year's Eve Pageant once, although I don't have the tape anymore. Paul Turner did a voiceover in the beginning of the special and later on in the '90s, he did quite a bit of voiceover work for WJW in the station's early years as a Fox affiliate.
 
Last edited:
Four more tapes at an estate sale this afternoon. There were a couple of wooden holders full of them, but a majority were family videos and retail tapes. Nothing from local TV but tapes 3 and 4 were awesome to look at.

Tape 1 - Christmas at Radio City Music Hall and 'The Color Purple' (1985) taped off HBO in December 1987 with plenty of promos, especially after 'The Color Purple'; part of 'Three Amigos' (1986) taped off HBO 12/19/1987 with plenty of promos and in-between material as well; ends with part of 'Heartbreak Ridge' (1986) taped off unknown pay-TV channel. Polaroid T-120
Tape 2 - 'Volunteers' (1985) taped off HBO in November 1987 with over 20 minutes of promos; 'The Jerk' (1979) taped off unknown pay-TV channel; 'To Catch a King' (1984) taped off HBO in August 1986 with lots of promos afterwards. Scotch T-120
Tape 3 - Most of an episode of Donald Duck Presents taped off The Disney Channel circa summer-fall 1985, an episode of Dumbo's Circus taped off Disney Channel circa fall 1985, 'Pollyanna' (1960), Wonderful World of Disney 'Fables & Fantasy' and part of 'Old Yeller' (1957) taped off Disney Channel in October 1985 with promos and free preview segments with Jim McKrell and Kathryn Leigh Scott. Kodak T-120
Tape 4 - Stanley the Ugly Duckling taped off unknown pay-TV channel; episode of Welcome to Pooh Corner taped off The Disney Channel circa 1986; 'Lady & The Tramp' (1955) taped off unknown channel (presumed Disney Channel) circa 1988; 'The Ugly Dachshund' (1966) and most of Animals in Action taped off The Disney Channel 5/21/1988 with promos; ends with part of 'Cloak & Dagger' (1984) taped off unknown pay-TV channel. Maxell T-120

6 other tapes were duds, movies taped off HBO with no promos. Wish I would have found at least something from one of the over-the-air stations, but that's the thrill of the hunt! Every estate sale, eBay lot and free pile is different.
 
Speaking of Spencer, Iowa radio, I have a cassette recording of some music recorded off of Lite 104.9 in Spencer, Iowa back in the early 2000s. I will definitely post some of those jingles on Youtube soon.
 
Four tapes (one dud) found at two estate sales today in Yakima.
Tape 1 - 'A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion' (1993) and first 4 minutes of the CBS Sunday Night News taped off KIMA/CBS 11/21/1993 with commercials. Memorex T-120
Tape 2 - 'The Rose Garden' (1989) taped off The Movie Channel in April 1992 with promos before the movie. Kodak T-120
Tape 3 - Three episodes of Homestretch and one episode of Body Electric taped off KYVE/PBS in November 1990 with a smattering of promos after the shows. At the very end of the tape is a couple minutes of Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler for the week of November 5th, and after the first episode of Homestretch is about 8 minutes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood that followed! Too bad it wasn't complete. Kodak T-120
 
crainbebo said:
Four tapes (one dud) found at two estate sales today in Yakima.
Tape 1 - 'A Walton Thanksgiving Reunion' (1993) and first 4 minutes of the CBS Sunday Night News taped off KIMA/CBS 11/21/1993 with commercials. Memorex T-120
Tape 2 - 'The Rose Garden' (1989) taped off The Movie Channel in April 1992 with promos before the movie. Kodak T-120
Tape 3 - Three episodes of Homestretch and one episode of Body Electric taped off KYVE/PBS in November 1990 with a smattering of promos after the shows. At the very end of the tape is a couple minutes of Jack Horkheimer: Star Hustler for the week of November 5th, and after the first episode of Homestretch is about 8 minutes of Mister Rogers' Neighborhood that followed! Too bad it wasn't complete. Kodak T-120
Click to expand...

Glad you finally got a PBS Kids show on one of the tapes. Your first one!
 


Back
Top Bottom