A possible cheaper place than Goodwill to purchase audio/video stuff is if one lives in a seasonal area where there are mobile home parks where people over 55 own the unit and land. The homeowners association has seasonal rummage sales, usually in Jan ,where it's possible to buy a working used DVD player or VCR for way under $10 (more like $3-5). We have a lot of these sales in FLA and I imagine there are a lot more places that do the same like TX, CA, AZ, ALA, GA anywhere there are seasonal/second homes.
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Tell us about your first VCR...
- Thread starter Stanislav
- Start date
My family's first VCR was a Curtis Mathes VCR purchased in 1982...don't recall how much it was purchased for. We used it mostly to record stuff off of TV until the mid-1980s...I think those tapes are buried in my house somewhere. We even used it when we moved to the country in early 1985 before we got our first C-Band BUD, having our first experiences with rental tapes, renting a lot of Disney tapes and even renting "The Empire Strikes Back" when it first came out on video in 1984. It saw a lot of use before finally giving out on us in about 1991. No fast forward or rewind during playback....hit the Pause button and get a black screen, and so forth....not a lot of features.
Our second VCR was added in about 1986, a GE model. It had more than the other one, and served us well until it died in 1990.
We replaced it with an Emerson, followed by a Radio Shack Realistic VCR that lasted until 1999, aside from a non-functional rewind and fast-foward function. (It only worked in playback.)
Our last standalone VCR was an Admiral that still serves us in the parents' room. It was retired to there by a Lite-On DVD Recorder/VCR Combo in 2005.
My first VCR was actually just a player model that I got for Christmas 1994. For a while I would record Nick at Nite (when it was really good) on the living room TV and play it back at nite in my room, since my tuner on my old Sony Trinitron TV was busted. It served a year and a week, and went out unexpectedly. Attempts to replace it were made with poorly working VCRs, and an Admiral recorder replaced it in 1996. It lasted until 1998 when I got a TV/VCR combo that would serve me well aside from some bumps and bruises until it was retired in 2003 and replaced with an RCA TV and an Emerson VCR. The VCR still serves me, but is used sparingly.
My VHS collection has dwindled down in recent years as well....at a peak of 40 tapes in 2001 to only five....it began its slow retirement when I was finally able to retire my VHS widescreen set of the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy. Now all I have left are my copies of the Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (soon to be retired now that the new set is due out in November with all three versions of the movie) and the original theatrical widescreen and special longer versions of the first Star Trek movie, since Paramount in all their infinite wisdom have only made the Director's Edition of the first movie the only official version of the film on DVD. I also have some of David Letterman's anniversary specials on VHS from his NBC years as well.
Our second VCR was added in about 1986, a GE model. It had more than the other one, and served us well until it died in 1990.
We replaced it with an Emerson, followed by a Radio Shack Realistic VCR that lasted until 1999, aside from a non-functional rewind and fast-foward function. (It only worked in playback.)
Our last standalone VCR was an Admiral that still serves us in the parents' room. It was retired to there by a Lite-On DVD Recorder/VCR Combo in 2005.
My first VCR was actually just a player model that I got for Christmas 1994. For a while I would record Nick at Nite (when it was really good) on the living room TV and play it back at nite in my room, since my tuner on my old Sony Trinitron TV was busted. It served a year and a week, and went out unexpectedly. Attempts to replace it were made with poorly working VCRs, and an Admiral recorder replaced it in 1996. It lasted until 1998 when I got a TV/VCR combo that would serve me well aside from some bumps and bruises until it was retired in 2003 and replaced with an RCA TV and an Emerson VCR. The VCR still serves me, but is used sparingly.
My VHS collection has dwindled down in recent years as well....at a peak of 40 tapes in 2001 to only five....it began its slow retirement when I was finally able to retire my VHS widescreen set of the original versions of the Star Wars trilogy. Now all I have left are my copies of the Special Edition of Close Encounters of the Third Kind (soon to be retired now that the new set is due out in November with all three versions of the movie) and the original theatrical widescreen and special longer versions of the first Star Trek movie, since Paramount in all their infinite wisdom have only made the Director's Edition of the first movie the only official version of the film on DVD. I also have some of David Letterman's anniversary specials on VHS from his NBC years as well.
I dont recall the exact year my folks bought a VCR. I'm going to guess, somewhere around 1982, could of been 81. No idea how much it cost, probably close to 500. I cant recall the brand (Panasonic maybe?), I do know it came from Sears, was a top loader, had push button channel selectors and a digital display (clock). We still have it today but the motor stopped working somewhere around 1990. Our street was finally wired for cabletv in '82 as well. I remember being fastinated by it.....Wow, I can record something....and watch it again...and again. I recorded a lot of miscallaneous stuff, an episode of Tom & Jerry, and several episodes of Threes company (which was in re-run's at the time), and then I remember recording the show Voyagers, and trying to get as many of those episodes as I could. I remember WWOR, which was available on cable here in the wash dc area, they would have re-runs of Voyagers. I recorded a few of the WWOR noon newscasts, and also recorded movies off HBO and stuff. To my knowledge, I still have most of these recordings. Later on, the cable company stopped showing us the straight WWOR feed and starting putting these stupid shows I'd never heard of in the timeslots that I wanted to watch.......thus no longer was the news at noon available and it was long after that, they just dropped WWOR all-together (perhaps in the early 90s?). It wasnt until 1999 when I got SATV, that I was able to get WWOR back, and still enjoy watching it today from here in VA. Over the years, I purchased many VCRs, almost all of them still work....I think I have around a dozen. If you count the 9inch TV/VCR combo w/ the cig. lighter adapter =), perfect for roadtrips. I have 2 DVD recorders now as well, but I do a lot of recording football, for trading purposes.
Just a quick OT note about WWOR: They stopped broadcasting as a national satellite network on Jan. 1, 1997. Since then it's only been available from Dish Network. I couldn't remember the date, but I found it from Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WWOR_EMI_Service .
My father bought our first VCR in summer 1985 or 1986. I believe the brand was Mitsubishi. It was front loading and cable ready, but the odd thing about it was it could only store 16 channels in memory. It had fine tuning buttons where you had to manually search for each channel and then save it into memory with the channel number of your choice (01-99). It was usable for almost 20 years with high usage.
Panasonic Omnivision, a.k.a. Reggie-Vision, as Reggie Jackson was their spokesman at the time. My dad must have bought it in 81 or 82. It was a top loader, wired remote w/pause,ff,rew, play and stop. It had a 12 channel tuner with a push button and a little tuning wheel for each channel. The channel numbers were plastic tabs that could be inserted onto a strip that was slid into the side of the unit. The tuner was not cable ready, but it could pickup a few cable channels between 6 and 7, and a few channels above 13. When our cable was upgraded from 12 channels to 36 channels, we bought one of those Radio Shack converters that converted cable channels to UHF channels. Problem was that it was not very stable, so we were constantly having to retune the darn thing. It had a manual tracking knob, and also had a switch for SP, LP, and SLP speeds, so it was possible to playback videos at a different speed than what it was recorded at. I used it mainly to make 6 hour tapes of MTV, back when they played videos.That VCR continued to work until the late 90's, when the motor finally went out.
My dad was an early adopter in those days. He bought a Novus calculator in the early 70's. It had the red led's and did add, subtraction, multiplication, and division only. I think he paid well over $100 for it. He still has it and AFAIK, it still works. We also had a GE cordless phone that he bought around 1980. It was a 2-channel phone that operated just above the AM broadcast band, around 1700 kHz. To change channels, there was a switch in the base and a switch in the handset that had to be switched to either channel A or B. Not long after we got our phone, our next door neighbor got a similar phone, and we could pickup each other's conversations. When their phone rang, ours did too and vice versa. I think he paid about $200 for the phone.
He never bought a PONG, although I had an uncle who bought one when they first came out, and I remember everyone at my grandmother's house hundled around the TV watching the "matches"
My dad was an early adopter in those days. He bought a Novus calculator in the early 70's. It had the red led's and did add, subtraction, multiplication, and division only. I think he paid well over $100 for it. He still has it and AFAIK, it still works. We also had a GE cordless phone that he bought around 1980. It was a 2-channel phone that operated just above the AM broadcast band, around 1700 kHz. To change channels, there was a switch in the base and a switch in the handset that had to be switched to either channel A or B. Not long after we got our phone, our next door neighbor got a similar phone, and we could pickup each other's conversations. When their phone rang, ours did too and vice versa. I think he paid about $200 for the phone.
He never bought a PONG, although I had an uncle who bought one when they first came out, and I remember everyone at my grandmother's house hundled around the TV watching the "matches"
stdjsb25 said:
Our second VCR was a "portable" Panasonic with camera in 1984. My neighbor had a very similar looking Curtis Mathis. He was so p*ssed when he found out my remote control not only looked like his, but also controlled his $250.00 more C-M. He would always say that C-M did something "extra" to their models. ;D
B
BobSacamano
Guest
"Panasonic Omnivision, a.k.a. Reggie-Vision, as Reggie Jackson was their spokesman at the time. " ...yep me too..I was told "top loaders" were better than "front-loaders"..yeah right
stevezodiac said:
Do you remember the Curtis Mathis commercials from the day? Their slogan was "The most expensive televisions in the world - and darn well worth it." I think at that time CM's were the only tv's still manufactured in the US. Their plant was in Athens, TX, about 60 miles from where I live.
I guess I should jump in here...
My family's first VCR was a Sylvania back in 1984. That was the only VCR we had for several years until we got a secondary unit - a Pulser unit (which used to be made by Canadian Tire). It gave out for good in 1995 and the next one was a Sharp in 1995, which I still have, and it still records and plays well (except for a tracking line on top whenever any new recordings are made, and that hasn't happened since late 2004). The Sylvania was eventually replaced when recording became a problem. We got a Citizen HI-FI in 1997. That gave out in 2000 and then we got a Sanyo (not a HI-FI) In 2004, it could still play but could no longer record sound. I still use it to play mono tapes for transfer to DVD. To replace the Sanyo was the same Sharp unit I bought in 1995 out of my own money that I saved for a while. Then we got a Panasonic HI-FI which we still use. That unit is used mainly for recordings done off the satellite dish. The Sharp was temporarily retired with the JVC I got for Christmas in 2002. It still works perfectly aside from any mixed signals it receives from the remote (such as recording by mistake but that's small stuff). I added extra VCRs over the last few years. In 2001, we got a Sylvania TV/VCR combo (again, not HI-FI). In 2005, we got a cheap Magnavox HI-FI unit for $50 at a Wal-Mart. It gave me two years of worthwhile use until it gave out in September 2007. My only reason for getting the Magnavox was for it to serve as the source unit when transferring to another tape by recording on the JVC. Last year, we got an LG HDD/DVD recorder. I've built up a decent DVD collection consisting of titles I've bought in the stores I've been to, recording off cable and satellite (and transferring tapes to disc), and downloading overseas stuff that interests me (mostly in the English language). I've also gotten some better-quality items through the above means where my own same item is in poor quality. Recently, I've ordered a new replacement for the Magnavox. It'll be a Toshiba DVD/VCR cobmo. It won't serve as a recording unit as I plan to move it around often (particularly if I need to play a DVD on an upstairs TV, and at this moment, no upstairs TV is hooked up to a DVD player). My main reason for getting another VCR is to use it as the source for transferring to DVD. The JVC can do the same thing but some source pictures tend to skip and give me headaches. That's why I need to give the JVC an extended rest.
Top that.
My family's first VCR was a Sylvania back in 1984. That was the only VCR we had for several years until we got a secondary unit - a Pulser unit (which used to be made by Canadian Tire). It gave out for good in 1995 and the next one was a Sharp in 1995, which I still have, and it still records and plays well (except for a tracking line on top whenever any new recordings are made, and that hasn't happened since late 2004). The Sylvania was eventually replaced when recording became a problem. We got a Citizen HI-FI in 1997. That gave out in 2000 and then we got a Sanyo (not a HI-FI) In 2004, it could still play but could no longer record sound. I still use it to play mono tapes for transfer to DVD. To replace the Sanyo was the same Sharp unit I bought in 1995 out of my own money that I saved for a while. Then we got a Panasonic HI-FI which we still use. That unit is used mainly for recordings done off the satellite dish. The Sharp was temporarily retired with the JVC I got for Christmas in 2002. It still works perfectly aside from any mixed signals it receives from the remote (such as recording by mistake but that's small stuff). I added extra VCRs over the last few years. In 2001, we got a Sylvania TV/VCR combo (again, not HI-FI). In 2005, we got a cheap Magnavox HI-FI unit for $50 at a Wal-Mart. It gave me two years of worthwhile use until it gave out in September 2007. My only reason for getting the Magnavox was for it to serve as the source unit when transferring to another tape by recording on the JVC. Last year, we got an LG HDD/DVD recorder. I've built up a decent DVD collection consisting of titles I've bought in the stores I've been to, recording off cable and satellite (and transferring tapes to disc), and downloading overseas stuff that interests me (mostly in the English language). I've also gotten some better-quality items through the above means where my own same item is in poor quality. Recently, I've ordered a new replacement for the Magnavox. It'll be a Toshiba DVD/VCR cobmo. It won't serve as a recording unit as I plan to move it around often (particularly if I need to play a DVD on an upstairs TV, and at this moment, no upstairs TV is hooked up to a DVD player). My main reason for getting another VCR is to use it as the source for transferring to DVD. The JVC can do the same thing but some source pictures tend to skip and give me headaches. That's why I need to give the JVC an extended rest.
Top that.
Oh, and a side note: I have worked with other VCRs on and off while doing various jobs. The oldest one I've used at a workplace was a late '70s/early '80s Panasonic model that was top-loading (as was the first VCR my family owned; every subsequent unit was front-loading) and had the VHF and UHF tuning dials, just like on the older TVs until the mid/late '80s when you simply used the remote to go up and down while channel-surfing.
J
Julius Leonard Marx
Guest
I got a Mitsubishi VHS recorder in 1981. It cost something like $1,100.
I don't remember what I recorded but the first movie I rented was Stalag 17.
I did tape a bunch of stuff I thought I would save and treasure. Spent a fortune on blank tapes. I never watched any of them and the tapes are down in the basement in wine boxes (liquor stores around here let people pick up empty boxes after they stock the shelves). I'd check the tapes to see if they are still playable but I don't have a VCR hooked up any more. I use TiVo to time-shift and DVDs to rent.
The basement also has audio cassettes and vinyl records. I gotta clean out that basement some day.
I don't remember what I recorded but the first movie I rented was Stalag 17.
I did tape a bunch of stuff I thought I would save and treasure. Spent a fortune on blank tapes. I never watched any of them and the tapes are down in the basement in wine boxes (liquor stores around here let people pick up empty boxes after they stock the shelves). I'd check the tapes to see if they are still playable but I don't have a VCR hooked up any more. I use TiVo to time-shift and DVDs to rent.
The basement also has audio cassettes and vinyl records. I gotta clean out that basement some day.
F
FreddyE1977
Guest
While in college I took a job at a defunct Catalog Showroom selling VCR's and electronics for the 1985 Christmas season. It was an incredibly hot Christmas gift that year...by myself I sold nearly 400 units. Our
training had taught us that the best quality machines we sold were the Matsushista front-loaders, of which
we carried virtually identical models from Panasonic, GE and Magnavox. We also had a few top-loaders with wired remotes left over that were hard to move. All had little dial-front tuners. Prices ranged $350-400 for most of them. When one of the GE's went on sale for $329.95 our family decided to buy one for my grandmother as a Christmas gift. They sold out in an hour and I had to take a raincheck. We could not get any more from the distributor, and eventually they offered to substitute a Maganavox model which was essentially the same but was not cable ready. As this was such a hot item we took it. After Christmas when the GE's came back in stock we bought one for ourselves. We stocked an Emerson machine that was a real piece of crud...more than half came back. Had a few Beta machines but they were already waning. First thing I remember recording was a USA Network presentation of "It's a Wonderful Life", which was my grandma's favorite. Also recorded a lot of David Letterman, Hawaii Five-O and Star Trek which ran late night to watch later. First machine I bought for myself was a TEAC MV-370 around a year later. I dragged it all over the midwest as I moved around to start my career. It finally gave up and went to the trash man about a year ago.
training had taught us that the best quality machines we sold were the Matsushista front-loaders, of which
we carried virtually identical models from Panasonic, GE and Magnavox. We also had a few top-loaders with wired remotes left over that were hard to move. All had little dial-front tuners. Prices ranged $350-400 for most of them. When one of the GE's went on sale for $329.95 our family decided to buy one for my grandmother as a Christmas gift. They sold out in an hour and I had to take a raincheck. We could not get any more from the distributor, and eventually they offered to substitute a Maganavox model which was essentially the same but was not cable ready. As this was such a hot item we took it. After Christmas when the GE's came back in stock we bought one for ourselves. We stocked an Emerson machine that was a real piece of crud...more than half came back. Had a few Beta machines but they were already waning. First thing I remember recording was a USA Network presentation of "It's a Wonderful Life", which was my grandma's favorite. Also recorded a lot of David Letterman, Hawaii Five-O and Star Trek which ran late night to watch later. First machine I bought for myself was a TEAC MV-370 around a year later. I dragged it all over the midwest as I moved around to start my career. It finally gave up and went to the trash man about a year ago.
Updating this long-gone thread
The first VCR we got was around 1987-89, a RCA VR450 VHS player. They look like this, with the little "4 Head" thing on the tape loading lid, however this eBay listing is for a broken VR450.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Broken-RCA-VR-450-4-HEAD-VCR-/380137959498?pt=VCRs&hash=item5881fcf04a
The VR450 served us well with rental tapes and blanks until it ate up tapes, and later died while playing the Sylvester Stallone VHS of "Get Carter". (It got stuck in the VCR)
After this, a Sylvania was bought around 2000. This served us pretty well until about 2006, when it too, had a stuck tape and died. The next VCR I bought was a Sony bought in 2008. (DVD/VCR combo) Now, I have that and a Panasonic PV-9662 from 1999 bought at Goodwill only about 4 or 5 months ago. Price: $5.99!, works perfectly.
-crainbebo
The first VCR we got was around 1987-89, a RCA VR450 VHS player. They look like this, with the little "4 Head" thing on the tape loading lid, however this eBay listing is for a broken VR450.
http://cgi.ebay.com/Broken-RCA-VR-450-4-HEAD-VCR-/380137959498?pt=VCRs&hash=item5881fcf04a
The VR450 served us well with rental tapes and blanks until it ate up tapes, and later died while playing the Sylvester Stallone VHS of "Get Carter". (It got stuck in the VCR)
After this, a Sylvania was bought around 2000. This served us pretty well until about 2006, when it too, had a stuck tape and died. The next VCR I bought was a Sony bought in 2008. (DVD/VCR combo) Now, I have that and a Panasonic PV-9662 from 1999 bought at Goodwill only about 4 or 5 months ago. Price: $5.99!, works perfectly.
-crainbebo
I've posted this before, but my latest VCR also came from Goodwill last year. It was a late 90's model Sharp. I paid $9.00 for it and $12.00 for a matching remote on Ebay, and it's been working great. I'd definitely make sure if you buy a used VCR from Goodwill or similar stores that it has a return policy. Some do and some only sell them as is.
...this sounds like the ones that Team Electronics at Park Plaza in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, had on sale in '72. I tried to convince my dad to get one, but it was prohibitively expensive and, besides, we weren't all that impressed with the offerings on TV at the time; we were even beginning to buy old-time radio shows on LP for those stretches when ABC, NBC and CBS and a lone independent (no PBS yet) left us bored spitless ;D ...Tom Wells said:
My granddad had a very early jvc vhs deck,first vcr in the family. Vcr died in89
My dad and mums first vcr was a panasonic pv-1545 vhs hi-fi deck that worked great until 97, was fixed but never worked as good died for real 2006, smoke sparks the whole works :'( that vcr was awsome! - had dubing, mts stereo, picture controles, catv ready,ect.
The next vcr was a 4 head quasar mono vcr from 90? died in 04
Then we also have a panasonic hi-fi vcr plus from 99 still works and used to transfer difficult tapes that wont track in the panasonic vcr/dvd recorder unit,
I have an rca vcr from 03 still works good for emergency recordings
We also have an 05 panasonic hifi vcr
and the 06 vcr-dvr panasonic vcr. Still used but it is a horrible vhs deck.
My dad and mums first vcr was a panasonic pv-1545 vhs hi-fi deck that worked great until 97, was fixed but never worked as good died for real 2006, smoke sparks the whole works :'( that vcr was awsome! - had dubing, mts stereo, picture controles, catv ready,ect.
The next vcr was a 4 head quasar mono vcr from 90? died in 04
Then we also have a panasonic hi-fi vcr plus from 99 still works and used to transfer difficult tapes that wont track in the panasonic vcr/dvd recorder unit,
I have an rca vcr from 03 still works good for emergency recordings
We also have an 05 panasonic hifi vcr
and the 06 vcr-dvr panasonic vcr. Still used but it is a horrible vhs deck.
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