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Oldest Extant Off-Air VHS/Beta Tape You Have

Looks like 7/24 and 7/25/1988 for that Deliberate Stranger repeat.
Still slowly going through previous tapes in my collection - but it's sllllooowwww. 20+ hours of work (at essential business) + four spring quarter virtual classes makes for a difficult time to post stuff. That and I still need to get an external hard drive because Amazon is full.
 
For the first time since January 2019, I will be getting some tapes from eBay. Just paid for a lot of 27 out of Eugene OR. Labels show various movies, Babylon 5, Star Trek, Shogun, several unlabeled. Small risk, little less than $1/tape. Hoping for some good stuff and not just a bunch of rental duds. Eugene recordings aren't as common as you think on YouTube. I have personally found KVAL (2002) and KEZI (1986, 2003, 2009) content in the past but it's not common. Nothing from KMTR yet. Maybe in this lot!
Good way to kill time during the pandemic.
 
crainbebo said:
For the first time since January 2019, I will be getting some tapes from eBay. Just paid for a lot of 27 out of Eugene OR. Labels show various movies, Babylon 5, Star Trek, Shogun, several unlabeled. Small risk, little less than $1/tape. Hoping for some good stuff and not just a bunch of rental duds. Eugene recordings aren't as common as you think on YouTube. I have personally found KVAL (2002) and KEZI (1986, 2003, 2009) content in the past but it's not common. Nothing from KMTR yet. Maybe in this lot!
Good way to kill time during the pandemic.
Click to expand...

Just took a plunge with a lot of 12 Betas from Lillington, NC at $1.50 per tape (Sadly, Betas are certainly getting more expensive recently). Overall, a "C" lot overall with the usual disappointments from some rental duds (about half the tapes), commercials zapped, and content off HBO as opposed to local stations (Though there was a couple of interesting HBO finds here), but there were a few good finds as well. Kept four tapes:

Tape 1: Cocoon, followed by Not Necessarily The News and about half of Florida Straits, taped off HBO on 11/1/1986 with some promos in between the movies. This happened to be the first night where the new blue/magenta HBO Movie intro was featured, and it was used prior to Florida Straits.

Tape 2: My Stepmother Is An ALien and Father Was A Fullback taped off The Disney Channel in February 1990 with promos after each movie

Tape 3: Eddie & The Cruisers, Meatballs II, and most of Not Necessarily The News (TV special episode) taped off HBO in November 1985 with some promos

Tape 4: Most of Super Bowl XXI taped off WFMY/CBS on 1/25/1987 with about half of the commercials intact. Begins just before the national anthem, and includes the entire postgame segment with commercials. Unfortunately, the entire halftime was zapped out, a real shame since its an integral part of the Super Bowl itself even if nothing like the high-budget spectacle it is now. The biggest surprise though was a full WFMY newscast following the game, and 1980s newscasts aren't exactly easy to find in NC's #3 market (Greensboro/Winston-Salem). This locally pre-empted the premiere of the short-lived drama Hard Copy (Not the '90s tabloid news show). Part of the WFMY's late movie with a couple more commercial breaks follows.

Two other tapes included Super Bowl XXII from the following year with about one-fourth of the commercials intact (along with the halftime show). An uncut Super Bowl XXII is readily available in the trading circuit, so I put that in the "Sell, but don't record" pile. The last tape I put in the "sell, but pass" pile was most of an episode of WTBS' Power Play from October 1985 with all commercials zapped out, the 1985 Pee-Wee Herman special off HBO, Amazing Stores and Amazing Stories off WXII in October 1985 with only one commercial break intact, and All Of Me recorded off HBO without promos.

I've got a huge lot (under $1 tape) of Betas coming from southern CA soon. I live on the east coast, so even CA stuff intrigues me, especially if its from the '80s since I'm a sucker of that decade and I'd love to find Tape stock on the photo looks to be from around the mid-80s, and no labels are visible. I asked the seller a question about any content/commercials, and the response is that the photos was generic and that s/he never owned a machine. Sometimes, these "Blind, totally random" lots can be more interesting, especially if I just look at them one at a time. Of course, I'd wish that some came from some game show contestants or people who worked on some TV shows or guest starred in them, along with the fact that my average Beta recording I find dates to around 1987 as opposed to almost a decade later for VHS. Keep in mind that my oldest ever recording from April 1977 (I'll be posting it today on YouTube!) also came from a southern CA-based lot.
 
I didn't think the post-"Space" intro premiered on HBO until 1987. Good to know. I put up 16 tapes last night on eBay and hoping for a modest sale. I'm getting another hundred pack of blank DVDs in a few days and will be able to put up more tapes on eBay. I've got nearly 30 more that can go up to eBay after DVD conversion.
 
So far out of the Eugene lot, not a full list and I will report a full list later - I have found 10 keepers out of 18 and I still have several more to go. A couple of Eugene recordings mixed in with Sacramento, San Francisco, Anchorage AK (first Alaska find in a long time), and cable stuff. Oldest find: 1985 broadcasts of Shogun taped off KTVU with commercials (One part had the Ten O Clock News intro). Most interesting find: multiple hours of JETIX cartoons (Digimon, Power Rangers, etc.) taped in March 2007 w/ commercials - the Toon Disney block. I've never found anything from Toon Disney before. Nice distraction waiting for COVID-19 to relieve itself and estate sales to return.
 
Full list! Very little from Eugene itself; a lot from out of market.

Tape 1 - 'Before Women Had Wings' (1997) and part of News 10 at 11 taped off KXTV-10 Sacramento/ABC on 11/2/1997 with commercials; part of 'Sleepwalkers' (1992) and about 10 minutes of Roseanne taped off KTXL-40 in June 1997 with commercials; part of 'The River Wild' (1994) taped off KCRA/NBC on 4/27/1997 with commercials, movie ran 2 1/2 hours so it does not complete before the tape runs out. Memorex T-120
Tape 2 - 'Backdraft' (1991) and part of 'Out for Justice' (1991) taped off Request PPV in December 1991 with over 15 minutes of promos and featurettes before the movie; end of 'Sleeping with the Enemy' (1991) and part of 'Awakenings' (1991) taped off Request PPV in October 1991 with promos. Scotch EG+ T-120
Tape 3 - Parts 1 to 4 of Shogun taped off KTVU-2 San Francisco on 2/11-14/1985 with commercials. BASF T-160 (oldest one I've ever found!)
Tape 4 - Way too new to upload anything: part of 'Red' (2010) taped off TNT on 6/26/2016 with commercials off the Dish HD box. Maxell T-120
Tape 5 - 'Species' (1995) and part of Northwest News taped off KVAL/CBS on 3/30/1999 with commercials - taped over the air with a lot of ghosting. Video quality is very poor during the newscast. This is then followed by the last 10 minutes of the 1993 Heidi miniseries, a Silly Symphony cartoon, and part of Quack Attack taped off The Disney Channel circa summer 1996 with promos; partial series finale of Murder, She Wrote and start of Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy taped off KVAL/CBS on 5/19/1996 with commercials; ends with about 10 minutes of Northwest News taped off KVAL-13 in December 1994 with commercials. Scotch T-120
Tape 6 - The 13th Annual Soap Opera Digest Awards taped off KTUU-2 Anchorage AK/NBC on 2/28/1997 with commercials. Blank after 2hrs. Carrs T-120 (which gave it away that it came from Alaska)
Tape 7 - 'A Christmas Story' (1983) taped off Turner Classic Movies in December 2003 with Robert Osborne's closing and a couple promos after. After some time of blank video/memory counter moving, the tape cuts to an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos and nearly all of The Best Commercials You've Never Seen taped off KGO-7 San Francisco/ABC on 11/30/2001 with commercials. Fuji E-240 (!) Still worked, slightly distorted (possibly from prior PAL recordings).
Tape 8 - Second half of the My Name is Earl season premiere and episode of The Office taped off KMTR/NBC on 9/27/2007 with commercials; partial and full episode of Digimon: Digital Monsters, Power Rangers: Generations, Legend of the Dragon, Power Rangers: Mystic Force, Get Ed and Dragon Booster taped off Jetix/Toon Disney in March 2007 with some commercials and promos. Panasonic T-120
Tape 9 - 'The Even Stevens Movie' (2003) taped off Disney Channel 6/13/2003 with promos. JVC T-120
Tape 10 - Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story part 1 taped off KEPB/PBS (OPB) circa 2001 with a few promos afterwards. Maxell T-120
Tape 11 - Starts with about 5 minutes of security camera footage from a casino, then cuts over to 'Hollow Man' (2000) taped off USA on 9/9/2005 with commercials; partial episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation taped off KCLO-15 Rapid City SD/CBS (KELO-LAND TV) on 8/7/2003 with commercials, also includes severe T-storm warning crawl for Custer County SD - my first find from South Dakota! Maxell T-160
Tape 12 - Parts 1 to 3 of Lonesome Dove taped off Hallmark Channel on 7/3/2004 with commercials. TDK T-120
Tape 13 - Part 4 of Lonesome Dove and 'The Trail to Hope Rose' (2004) taped off Hallmark Channel the same night as Tape 12, with commercials. Also a TDK T-120
Tape 14 - Last 2 hours of a broadcast of 'Dune' (1984) taped off Sci-Fi Channel on 7/3/2002 with commercials (including ads inserted by Dish Network); partial broadcast of 'Thunderball' (1965) taped off TBS circa 1994 with commercials; partial episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a full episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and another episode of Star Trek: TNG taped off KPTV-12 circa March 1993, all but two commercial breaks at the end of the second TNG cut out. TDK T-120
Tape 15 - Home movie but I kept it for this reason: about 30 minutes of footage from the USTU Junior Olympics in Los Angeles, taped July 6th, 1995. This was the youth championships for the various tae-kwon-do leagues around the nation. Probably one of a kind. Maxell T-120

I've never found anything in the wild that was an E-180/240 albeit I passed on a box of obvious E-180s mixed with British retail movies at a Wenatchee WA thrift store in June 2018. One of those tapes said 'Alice', which during the '80s was on UK's Channel 4. Apparently the thrift store found a new home and will be back open when COVID19 stay-home orders go away, maybe that box is still there? I should try and get a worldwide VCR on eBay.
Of course the usual several with rental duds and/or pay-TV recordings where the person cut the recording off before the in-between promos. One 'Old Yeller' rental dud was played to the end, then whoever coped it rewound the retail tape and PLAYED IT AGAIN to run the tape out...
 
For non-R1 material, I'm probably content with DVD trades since I do have a universal DVD player, and of course there's plenty of R1 stuff out there anyways. I just listed ten lots on eBay, hoping that with most of us still in a lockdown order, will provide some activity before the activity slows down. That CA Betamax lot unfortunately was mostly a bust, with the best I could find being a couple of pre-and post movie interviews off KTTV in 1983 as well as two tapes containing commercials off WGN (cable feed) from 1983 and 1985, as well as several tapes with at least several minutes of promos off cable from 1983-85, mostly from The Movie Channel. Based on the labels, most were recorded off subscription TV, with a few off KTTV, but with the commercials cut in those instances, and I even gave up about halfway in, noticing the lack of "end of tape" surprises. I even noticed about a ten minute clip of the first USFL game between LA and NJ from 1983, but without any ads. That said, I even included that one lot on my eBay list hoping that with some scarcer titles that are harder to find on DVD or on a streaming service, will attract some bidders. One tape for instance includes recordings of include Laughter In Paradise (1951), which isn't available in the Americas or Europe currently on eBay, a pay TV broadcast of the 1980 TV movie "The Day The Women Got Even", and the 1984 Showtime adaption of "A Talent For Murder".
 
I've avoided Beta lots lately for most of those reasons - they just aren't good enough right now. A lot of misses and a few hits, nearly all of which are overpriced x10. I did miss out on a big 40+ Beta lot from Redmond WA a few weeks ago with late '70s TV Guide listings labeled on the cartridges...all old movies from KOMO/KING/etc. That would have been awesome to look at. KING recordings from 1978 or 1979? Hell yeah. Think it was about $100 or so...
I won't go up to Wenatchee until probably June when this clears up and Inslee starts to lift the recommendation against non-essential travel. If the box is still there (which it's likely not), I will go ahead and buy it and maybe send it your way to get it transferred into NTSC, either that or purchase a worldwide VCR on eBay...
 
Thanks. I don't find AF(H)V that often. I've found two with Bob Saget, zero with Daisy Fuentes-John Fugelsang, and two (and a half) no pun intended, with Tom Bergeron. Speaking of him I've only found one full Hollywood Squares from the Bergeron era, and nothing from FX Breakfast Time or FOX After Breakfast.
I never expected the South Dakota recordings either. Albeit the Even Stevens tape was marked with an ink stamp that said 'GULCHES OF FUN'. Apparently that was a now-defunct amusement place in Deadwood SD, I think near a casino. Perhaps someone worked at the casino, took one of the old security tapes before they junked it, and recorded TV over it. What a random lot. I bet these were all rejected donations to thrift stores...
 
Came across a tape on eBay containing 6 episodes of Hawaii Five-O recorded off WTXF Fox 29 in Philadelphia in November of 1993 with commercials intact on all episodes. Episodes recorded between 11/11/93 and 11/24/93. Tape also includes the first 10 minutes of an episode of the Woody Woodpecker show also recorded off WTXF on 11/24/93 with commercials intact.
 
crainbebo said:
Full list! Very little from Eugene itself; a lot from out of market.

Tape 1 - 'Before Women Had Wings' (1997) and part of News 10 at 11 taped off KXTV-10 Sacramento/ABC on 11/2/1997 with commercials; part of 'Sleepwalkers' (1992) and about 10 minutes of Roseanne taped off KTXL-40 in June 1997 with commercials; part of 'The River Wild' (1994) taped off KCRA/NBC on 4/27/1997 with commercials, movie ran 2 1/2 hours so it does not complete before the tape runs out. Memorex T-120
Tape 2 - 'Backdraft' (1991) and part of 'Out for Justice' (1991) taped off Request PPV in December 1991 with over 15 minutes of promos and featurettes before the movie; end of 'Sleeping with the Enemy' (1991) and part of 'Awakenings' (1991) taped off Request PPV in October 1991 with promos. Scotch EG+ T-120
Tape 3 - Parts 1 to 4 of Shogun taped off KTVU-2 San Francisco on 2/11-14/1985 with commercials. BASF T-160 (oldest one I've ever found!)
Tape 4 - Way too new to upload anything: part of 'Red' (2010) taped off TNT on 6/26/2016 with commercials off the Dish HD box. Maxell T-120
Tape 5 - 'Species' (1995) and part of Northwest News taped off KVAL/CBS on 3/30/1999 with commercials - taped over the air with a lot of ghosting. Video quality is very poor during the newscast. This is then followed by the last 10 minutes of the 1993 Heidi miniseries, a Silly Symphony cartoon, and part of Quack Attack taped off The Disney Channel circa summer 1996 with promos; partial series finale of Murder, She Wrote and start of Ruby Ridge: An American Tragedy taped off KVAL/CBS on 5/19/1996 with commercials; ends with about 10 minutes of Northwest News taped off KVAL-13 in December 1994 with commercials. Scotch T-120
Tape 6 - The 13th Annual Soap Opera Digest Awards taped off KTUU-2 Anchorage AK/NBC on 2/28/1997 with commercials. Blank after 2hrs. Carrs T-120 (which gave it away that it came from Alaska)
Tape 7 - 'A Christmas Story' (1983) taped off Turner Classic Movies in December 2003 with Robert Osborne's closing and a couple promos after. After some time of blank video/memory counter moving, the tape cuts to an episode of America's Funniest Home Videos and nearly all of The Best Commercials You've Never Seen taped off KGO-7 San Francisco/ABC on 11/30/2001 with commercials. Fuji E-240 (!) Still worked, slightly distorted (possibly from prior PAL recordings).
Tape 8 - Second half of the My Name is Earl season premiere and episode of The Office taped off KMTR/NBC on 9/27/2007 with commercials; partial and full episode of Digimon: Digital Monsters, Power Rangers: Generations, Legend of the Dragon, Power Rangers: Mystic Force, Get Ed and Dragon Booster taped off Jetix/Toon Disney in March 2007 with some commercials and promos. Panasonic T-120
Tape 9 - 'The Even Stevens Movie' (2003) taped off Disney Channel 6/13/2003 with promos. JVC T-120
Tape 10 - Anne of Green Gables: The Continuing Story part 1 taped off KEPB/PBS (OPB) circa 2001 with a few promos afterwards. Maxell T-120
Tape 11 - Starts with about 5 minutes of security camera footage from a casino, then cuts over to 'Hollow Man' (2000) taped off USA on 9/9/2005 with commercials; partial episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation taped off KCLO-15 Rapid City SD/CBS (KELO-LAND TV) on 8/7/2003 with commercials, also includes severe T-storm warning crawl for Custer County SD - my first find from South Dakota! Maxell T-160
Tape 12 - Parts 1 to 3 of Lonesome Dove taped off Hallmark Channel on 7/3/2004 with commercials. TDK T-120
Tape 13 - Part 4 of Lonesome Dove and 'The Trail to Hope Rose' (2004) taped off Hallmark Channel the same night as Tape 12, with commercials. Also a TDK T-120
Tape 14 - Last 2 hours of a broadcast of 'Dune' (1984) taped off Sci-Fi Channel on 7/3/2002 with commercials (including ads inserted by Dish Network); partial broadcast of 'Thunderball' (1965) taped off TBS circa 1994 with commercials; partial episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, a full episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and another episode of Star Trek: TNG taped off KPTV-12 circa March 1993, all but two commercial breaks at the end of the second TNG cut out. TDK T-120
Tape 15 - Home movie but I kept it for this reason: about 30 minutes of footage from the USTU Junior Olympics in Los Angeles, taped July 6th, 1995. This was the youth championships for the various tae-kwon-do leagues around the nation. Probably one of a kind. Maxell T-120

I've never found anything in the wild that was an E-180/240 albeit I passed on a box of obvious E-180s mixed with British retail movies at a Wenatchee WA thrift store in June 2018. One of those tapes said 'Alice', which during the '80s was on UK's Channel 4. Apparently the thrift store found a new home and will be back open when COVID19 stay-home orders go away, maybe that box is still there? I should try and get a worldwide VCR on eBay.
Of course the usual several with rental duds and/or pay-TV recordings where the person cut the recording off before the in-between promos. One 'Old Yeller' rental dud was played to the end, then whoever coped it rewound the retail tape and PLAYED IT AGAIN to run the tape out...
Click to expand...

I have that same airing of The Even Stevens Movie. It was actually a time shift we taped starting at 6:00 PM because we went to the carnival and just let the tape run, all night.
 
pannoni1 said:
Just took a plunge with a lot of 12 Betas from Lillington, NC at $1.50 per tape (Sadly, Betas are certainly getting more expensive recently). Overall, a "C" lot overall with the usual disappointments from some rental duds (about half the tapes), commercials zapped, and content off HBO as opposed to local stations (Though there was a couple of interesting HBO finds here), but there were a few good finds as well. Kept four tapes:

Tape 1: Cocoon, followed by Not Necessarily The News and about half of Florida Straits, taped off HBO on 11/1/1986 with some promos in between the movies. This happened to be the first night where the new blue/magenta HBO Movie intro was featured, and it was used prior to Florida Straits.

Tape 2: My Stepmother Is An ALien and Father Was A Fullback taped off The Disney Channel in February 1990 with promos after each movie

Tape 3: Eddie & The Cruisers, Meatballs II, and most of Not Necessarily The News (TV special episode) taped off HBO in November 1985 with some promos

Tape 4: Most of Super Bowl XXI taped off WFMY/CBS on 1/25/1987 with about half of the commercials intact. Begins just before the national anthem, and includes the entire postgame segment with commercials. Unfortunately, the entire halftime was zapped out, a real shame since its an integral part of the Super Bowl itself even if nothing like the high-budget spectacle it is now. The biggest surprise though was a full WFMY newscast following the game, and 1980s newscasts aren't exactly easy to find in NC's #3 market (Greensboro/Winston-Salem). This locally pre-empted the premiere of the short-lived drama Hard Copy (Not the '90s tabloid news show). Part of the WFMY's late movie with a couple more commercial breaks follows.

Two other tapes included Super Bowl XXII from the following year with about one-fourth of the commercials intact (along with the halftime show). An uncut Super Bowl XXII is readily available in the trading circuit, so I put that in the "Sell, but don't record" pile. The last tape I put in the "sell, but pass" pile was most of an episode of WTBS' Power Play from October 1985 with all commercials zapped out, the 1985 Pee-Wee Herman special off HBO, Amazing Stores and Amazing Stories off WXII in October 1985 with only one commercial break intact, and All Of Me recorded off HBO without promos.

I've got a huge lot (under $1 tape) of Betas coming from southern CA soon. I live on the east coast, so even CA stuff intrigues me, especially if its from the '80s since I'm a sucker of that decade and I'd love to find Tape stock on the photo looks to be from around the mid-80s, and no labels are visible. I asked the seller a question about any content/commercials, and the response is that the photos was generic and that s/he never owned a machine. Sometimes, these "Blind, totally random" lots can be more interesting, especially if I just look at them one at a time. Of course, I'd wish that some came from some game show contestants or people who worked on some TV shows or guest starred in them, along with the fact that my average Beta recording I find dates to around 1987 as opposed to almost a decade later for VHS. Keep in mind that my oldest ever recording from April 1977 (I'll be posting it today on YouTube!) also came from a southern CA-based lot.
Click to expand...

I enjoyed the super bowl halftime show when it wasnt all high budget production and people actually sang the songs and played the instruments instead of having hundreds of extras and back up dancers it is not really nessesary.
 
pannoni1 said:
Well due to my father being tested for the virus (thankfully it came back negative), I was off for much of this week and I'm planning on uploading over 80 videos on my five Youtube channels and the Internet Archive (pannoni4 over there), hopefully by next weekend since I have lots of commercial descriptions to type. Among those will include the 1986 and 1987 Golden Globe Awards (the ceremony on Archive and the commercials, off two Pittsburgh indies on YT which I got from that Yardley Craigslist lot last year), the 1991 American Comedy Awards, the semifinal and finals of Star Search '86 (albeit in fair condition with quite a bit of tape wear), most of an episode of You Bet Your Life from 1958 as taken from an April 1978 WPIX broadcast, part of the 1990 CBA Finals, Game 4, three SNLs from the '80s (including one hosted by Oprah Winfrey), some amateur footage of some high school girls basketball from the '80s including the 1985 awards ceremony from a classroom at Pasco HS, a couple John Patrick casino/sports gambling episodes, most of a Donahue episode from 1987, a WBAL newscast from 1991, episodes of the short-lived sitcoms Carol & Company and Open House from 1990, and even a clip from the locally produced Archie Campbell Show from 1985.

And I'm getting some more VHS tapes from eBay off a seller based off Long Island, mostly from the '90s, with some late '80s and early '00s, due to the fact that most listed sports like the NBA, NCAA, MLB, as well as some TV shows like In Living Color, The Cosby Show, A Different World, a Whitney Houston concert from South Africa, as well as some TV movies like The Women of Brewster Place (with one tape labeled with Fresh Prince/In Living Color/Brewster Place, suggesting the possibility of an episode from that short-lived 1990 ABC series based off that TV movie). The sports lot is mostly playoffs & finals as you may expect, with the oldest labeled '87 World Series, but of course with the sports world virtually on strike, these will be refreshing to search through, and that includes the NBA heyday of Michael Jordan as well as the Bad Boy Pistons and the tail end of the Magic Johnson-era Lakers, as well as the Knicks mini-golden age in the '90s. The amount of commercials is a question mark, hopefully it will be a fair share and not a small percentage like that Michigan lot earlier this year, and remember that the commercials could contain sublocal feeds such as Long Island based ads in addition to just general NYC-area ads. The seller had one more lot that I passed on (mostly NFL games) that got relisted and is going off tomorrow, with close to 20 Super Bowls from the late '80s through the '00s among the labels, as well as a few college bowl games and a few regular season games. I've still got nearly 20 Redskins tapes that I'll probably save for football season, and I'm short on basketball and baseball games in my collection. Expect the 60+ tapes to arrive in the next few days.
Click to expand...

Whic ebay seller is that out of Long Island?
 
Looks like I'm not done buying from ebay ;-)
Just picked up 20 tapes from a seller in Denham Springs, LA. Lots of vintage looking '80s tapes, Scotch, Recoton, Sony, some generic ones. Even an early T-160 Scotch. Denham Springs is near Baton Rouge, so any local TV would be WAFB-9 (CBS), WBRZ-2 (ABC), WVLA-33 (NBC), or WLPB-27 (PBS). Early Fox programming was week-delayed on WVLA, until WGMB signed on in 1990. But I wonder if WGNO was on cable for a brief period?
 
WFMY is a Greensboro CBS affiliate, so I am a bit surprised someone in Lillington would have had that on either their cable grid or over the air to record in 1987 unless they moved of course. The CBS affiliate that would have been accessible to someone in Lillington in 1987 would have been WRAL for what its worth. I actually used to be able to receive mostly snowy WFMY antenna reception 60 miles East of their location in the early 1990s, its where I first saw syndicated airings of Kids in the Hall which they aired late nights on Fridays and Saturdays.

Another airing date question for those in the group, when was the 25th NAACP Image Awards aired on NBC? I only could find the date it occurred (January 16, 1993), not the date it was aired tape delayed. For what its worth it was on NBC on a Saturday night and Chris Rock did the lead in that it preempted SNL. Unfortunately this was on ancient late 70s early 80s tape stock, which was probably taped over 20 times by the time it got to 1993. I'm actually watching this right now and the nostalgia for early 90s sitcoms was awesome, Fresh Prince, Martin, on and on.
 
The 25th NAACP Image Awards aired one week after it was taped (1/23/1993), pre-empting SNL as you described. Speaking of old tape stock with '90s and newer recordings, I've got one tape with some 1992 stuff off some Boston stations that's a first generation Sony K-60 Beta tape (produced 1975-77) that I found last year that contained most of an episode of New England Chronicle (about summer fun sadly), as well as part of Family Matters from July 1992, the last few minutes of 48 Hours, about 15 minutes of Boston Marathon Coverage, as well as a clip of the PBS documentary special Skyscraper, about NYC's One Worldwide Plaza. At least its not late '90s or '00s stuff!

crainbebo said:
Looks like I'm not done buying from ebay ;-)
Just picked up 20 tapes from a seller in Denham Springs, LA. Lots of vintage looking '80s tapes, Scotch, Recoton, Sony, some generic ones. Even an early T-160 Scotch. Denham Springs is near Baton Rouge, so any local TV would be WAFB-9 (CBS), WBRZ-2 (ABC), WVLA-33 (NBC), or WLPB-27 (PBS). Early Fox programming was week-delayed on WVLA, until WGMB signed on in 1990. But I wonder if WGNO was on cable for a brief period?
Click to expand...

You could easily get New Orleans (or for that matter, other out-of-market content) though, since south central Louisiana has a lot of people who moved from New Orleans post-Katrina. That said, I'm eyeing a lot of approximately 38 VHS tapes from a seller that lives about a half hour from me in an upscale community where the Craigslist listing mentions commercials (and its listed as free). One question regarding Craigslist: when you click on the Google Maps link, how accurate is the pinpoint location regarding pickup, since I contacted the seller last Saturday and yesterday (after the listing was updated) via Aol Mail and still haven't gotten a reply? I know its not courteous to just knock on the door of the nearest home, asking about Craigslist, but even if I don't get a reply, what's your take on this?
 
Pannoni1, thanks for the info! I dont know why I have such a hard time finding even national NBC listings, does anyone have a website for that? Local ones would require local regional TV guides or newspapers of course.

On another tape I found an episode of "Home" or "The Home Show" from April 1989. After doing some research I noticed it aired on ABC from 1988-1994 though I dont remember seeing a single episode as a kid. Anyone find an episode of this before?
 
I actively use news.google.com/newspapers to find listings of various shows. It hasn't been updated in about a decade in terms of new content, but for now, its still the easiest way to access a bunch of free newspapers to determine national content listings. I tend to use the Free Lance-Star a lot since it includes local listings for both the Washington, DC market (the closest I'm too) as well as WJZ and WBFF from Baltimore, plus all Richmond stations. Various others are also there like the Union Democrat and Lodi News Sentinel (San Francisco, Sacramento, as well as parts of central CA like the Monterrey and Fresno areas), the Reading Eagle (Philadelphia), Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the Toledo Blade (Detroit and Cleveland as well as Toledo), Lawrence Journal-World (Kansas City), Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Kingman Daily Miner (Phoenix), The Herald-Journal (Greenville-Spartanburg as well as some of the Charlotte stations), The Telegraph (Boston), The Hour (Connecticut and Providence, RI), Victoria Advocate (San Antonio and Houston), among others. Its a shame that good papers for listings in Miami (New Times) and most recently Milwaukee (Journal and Sentinel) were taken down for various legal reasons, resorting me to a pay site like Newspapers.com. But it remains sufficient for most purposes for locating basic content. I also use fultonhistory.com/fulton sometimes to more easily locate a program due to its decent searchable function, and it helps especially in some early cable content since a lot of more rural areas seemed to approve these cable services.

I've found episodes of Home on tapes before, but haven't found any since 2007. I've found seven full episodes and two partials altogether, including a full week from June 1990 that I found around 2015. The 2017 finds included the full 4/18/1988 and part of the May 13 episode from the same year, which came from a storage unit find that notably was my first ever Craigslist purchase. The May 13 episode was partially interrupted by an ABC News Special Report. The 1990 episodes are an hour long, while the 1988 ones were just half an hour.

Since I never got a reply and am leery to take a chance, I passed on that free lot of tapes. However, a fellow trader through emails sent me six boxes of tapes, mostly VHS and one Beta for me to search through who recently had an account closed on Archive. Among the fines I've encountered so far are a few VHS transferred copies of The Tonight Show from the 1970s, with the national commercials and Doc Severenisen Orchestra playing during the local/regional portions of the commercial breaks, several episodes of the Dick Clark-produced rock show Where The Action Is from 1996, the complete 1992 Emmy Awards taped off WBFF/FOX on 8/30/1992 with commercials, four half-hour edited episodes of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert from 1974 and 1975 off VH1 in May 1995 with most commercials, an episode of Maury Povich with model Christie Brinkley as guest in July 1993 off WKYC with commercials, part of an MTV special featuring fashion and style as well as Run-D.M.C. from the spring of 1986 with no commercials, as well as nearly 15 hours of coverage from Woodstock '94 taped off Viewer's Choice PPV on 8/13 and 8/13/1994 with the one hour preshow and a promo at the beginning. And this is only about 20% of the finds so far, and all I owe the seller is the shipping total. There were some that I tossed or but to the "sell" pile like various MTV or music videos from the '80s/'90s with no commercials, the 2001 World Trade Center benefit concert, an Oprah episode with Bill Clinton from 2004, as well an episode of the Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson from 2005, as well as some boomerang tapes that I had once possessed that eventually went back my way which I either recorded or passed on (about one out of every ten tapes). With that said, has anyone ever noticed the same tape that you sold off ever return for a second time before?
 


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