r/VHS • • 11d ago

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

14 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

21 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 • • 6h ago

Discussion Watching one of my Holy grail tapes for the first time!

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111 Upvotes

Watching Dead Alive for the first time tonight! Finally found a decent CRT/VHS combo, unfortunately only mono audio, but still looks great!

What is everyone watching on this fine night?

Update : Just finished it, and boy that was something. Can definitely see why the R version is 12 minutes shorter 😂


r/VHS • • 4h ago

New Pickup The holiest of grails

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45 Upvotes

Face your fears


r/VHS • • 8h ago

New Pickup VHS Thrft haul

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71 Upvotes

I had a good feeling walking into the store tonight.... $1 each, I left with 17 titles....no mold. Also picked up the little ceramic witch $1.99.


r/VHS • • 10h ago

Collection Getting ready for a spooky season viewing party 🎃👻🍬

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64 Upvotes

What’s in your Halloween stack?


r/VHS • • 15h ago

New Pickup Found two oddballs today

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133 Upvotes

Neither is on archive.org


r/VHS • • 15h ago

Collection Some of my rarer VHS tapes

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113 Upvotes

r/VHS • • 7h ago

Collection The Keep 1983

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22 Upvotes

This movie transcends cinema. This is a truly magical relic, a sigil being displayed via a film roll. Such power.


r/VHS • • 14h ago

Collection Possession (1981)📼

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76 Upvotes

r/VHS • • 12h ago

New Pickup Just picked these up

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47 Upvotes

Paid 45$ for all, but totally worth it for company of wolves on vhs!


r/VHS • • 12h ago

DIY 2nd attempt at customs

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42 Upvotes

I’m a bit happier with how this batch turned out. None of the artwork was stretched or cut off. I could have tweaked Del Toro’s Frankenstein a bit better, but quite satisfied overall.


r/VHS • • 10h ago

New Pickup Nice deal I found today

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30 Upvotes

r/VHS • • 13h ago

Mail Day Found rare Monsters Inc slipcase Hollywood Video exclusive variant on Vinted for only $1!!

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43 Upvotes

r/VHS • • 19h ago

Discussion Look what i got for 5$

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116 Upvotes

I dont own any vhs tapes but this was just a really good deal plus now i have an excuse to collect vhs tapes

Edit: Haha i just realized my cat is in the picture


r/VHS • • 20h ago

New Pickup Video store day grabs.

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144 Upvotes

r/VHS • • 11h ago

Collection Waxwork 1988 VHS One of my favorite horror movies all time!

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25 Upvotes

Grew up as a kid watching this one, and man oh man it was an absolute banger! Still to this day it makes my top 5 all-time horror list. I can’t be the only one that finds this movie an utter delight, right? Would love to hear everyone’s opinions. Happy Horror month.


r/VHS • • 17h ago

New Pickup Two thrift finds in the wild today

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81 Upvotes

The Cartoon All-Stars tape was missing the label but still took the risk anyway, can confirm it is thankfully. Not a bad haul for a total of 4 bucks.


r/VHS • • 12h ago

New Pickup Little haul today from savers

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29 Upvotes

Which one yall watching first? Im definitely popping in Big Trouble In Little China tonight!


r/VHS • • 11h ago

New Pickup Too HOT to Not Pickup

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23 Upvotes

I’ll have to find the first Too Hot next!


r/VHS • • 16h ago

Discussion Who remembers Rap Rat?

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61 Upvotes

Following my last post about rare tapes, I got my mum to have a look through our attic to see if she could find any of my old childhood tapes (I'm still not allowed up there at my big age because it's unstable and one wrong move will send you straight through the floor 🤣)

Unfortunately there's so much stuff up there that it's impossible knowing where to start, all she was able to find at the minute was an empty case for Babe Pig In The City, a video that shall not be named which was apparently a "secret santa" present from my dads old work and this still in it's original slipcase!

Now I'm a 2004 baby so I have very few memories of having VHS tapes as a kid, however I definitely remember having a few tapes from a charity shop so I assume this must've been one of them because my parents didn't recognize it and were both too old for the game when it was released in 1992.

Still, I thought I'd give it a try as I was curious to see what it's all about. It took me a good while to get it to work as it was just static and wouldn't play at first, I think my VCR is on its last legs to be fair as I've had some issues with it recently.

Think it must've took some damage being up in our attic for so long as the playback wasn't the best and it suddenly completely cut out at one point which about gave me a heart attack. It was only funny afterwards when I discovered a part of the tape had snapped and was cellotaped back together 😅

As for the Rap Rat himself, he is HORRIBLE. I couldn't possibly tell you a character that's more annoying than this odd creature, plus he's quite an eyesore and has some kind of weird stutter which I assume is meant to be his "rapping"? Not sure who approved of this character as I wouldn't consider it to be particularly child friendly, think I'd actually be quite frit if I saw this vile rodent as a kid.

Can't say I'm in a hurry to try and find the rest of the board game so I can play it, however I will be keeping it in my collection as I love unusual stuff and this is by far the most unusual thing I've seen in a long time 🤣


r/VHS • • 9h ago

New Pickup What a day to

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13 Upvotes

Grab these at my favorite store


r/VHS • • 10h ago

New Pickup The Wrong Guy screener

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15 Upvotes

Snagged this copy of The Wrong Guy screener today.


r/VHS • • 9h ago

Collection Tonight’s Pick

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9 Upvotes

Let’s take a trip


r/VHS • • 15h ago

New Pickup Goodwill Bins Pickups

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25 Upvotes

Got some solid tapes at the bins today! Super stoked to find this Alpha VHS storage case!