What to do with vintage VCR?
 

I have a 1979-vintage Magnavox VHS VCR (coming up on 40 years old). This is a Panasonic clone from that era, top loading, piano key controls, mechanical click-stop tuner, 2 & 4 hour recording times. They were expensive machines in their day and built like a boat anchor.

I haven't used this VCR in the last 30+ years, and I assume the belts probably have gone bad. I have a couple much newer VCR's in the event I want to watch an old archived tape.

So my question is -- should I send this VCR to the recycling center, or does anyone have a use for these ancient units? I'd gladly give it away to someone who wanted it, but obviously, shipping something this heavy is out of the question. I assume that old VCR's such as this one will have no collectable value at least in my lifetime.

I hate to throw out something that was an expensive and well built unit, but I'm getting to the age I need to start seriously downsizing my "stuff" :D. Any ideas appreciated!!

There is a small community of VCR collectors. They mostly go for high end, high reliability/repairability, or really early stuff like yours. Please don't scrap it.

Shipping isn't entirely out of the question. If it's in a large box and WELL-bubble-wrapped, I don't see the problem. If you really don't want it, put it on ebay for a really cheap price (allowing plenty for shipping, of course). Worst case nobody bites and you wasted like $1 on ebay fees.

I figured e-bay would probably be my best choice. I've never done the e-bay thing, but there's always a first time! It's not taking up that much room at the moment, but I know I'm going to be wanting to downsize my abode in a few years, so I need to be thinking about doing some serious housecleaning.

It was a ridiculously expensive purchase at the time, especially considering my salary back then. That was back when I had to be the first on the block with the newest toy, and now I've gone 180 degrees to the opposite -- quite contented living with outdated technology.

My Panasonic PV-4022 VCR isn't nearly as old as yours (I'd say mine is perhaps 15 years old), but I still use it to watch my old VHS video tapes (about 60 of them) occasionally. Can't use it for recording in its present condition (Spectrum, formerly Time Warner Cable, is now all digital so the VCR won't record any longer, unless I hook it up to a cable box which I don't want or need), but it still works for playing back old tapes. Since I don't use it that much anymore since getting a DVD player several years ago, I think it should last a while longer.

I also have a Radio Shack SCT-11 stereo audio cassette tape deck, made in 1977, that works amazingly well for its age; it still has its original belts, every one of which is in good shape except the one that drives the tape counter. That one disintegrated shortly after I got the deck, but fortunately, it doesn't affect the unit's operation.

Nearly 40 years is a long time for any VCR to last, and it's even more remarkable it still works after all that time. My first VCR, in 1984, was a GE-branded unit built by Panasonic; it worked well for me for six years, then the heads wore out. I took it to a local TV repair shop and was told it would cost $250 to repair, so I gave up and bought a new Emerson machine. That one lasted about five years and was replaced by a Magnavox-branded VCR, which again lasted only a few years (I used it, the Emerson and the GE deck quite a bit). The Magnavox was replaced by my first "real" Panasonic VCR, with VCR Plus+, which lasted just a couple of years. It would have lasted longer if a tape hadn't jammed in it; the tape was of a TV show I had recorded only about three hours (!) before the problem occurred, so I never saw the program. :no: The VCR Plus+ function won't work these days, of course (to say nothing of the fact hardly anyone uses VCRs anymore), but if any of you still have a VCR with it, I'd hang on to it. Such VCRs could be collectors' items before long, if they aren't already.

The Panasonic with VCR Plus+ was replaced by my present Panasonic PV-4022 VCR which still works and, as I said, should be around a bit longer since I don't use it much these days.

BTW, I know what it's like having to downsize. I did just that eighteen years ago, when I left a three-bedroom house with a basement and moved to a one-bedroom apartment (very long story and OT). I brought most of the stuff from the old house with me when I moved here, and wound up throwing out maybe 80 percent of it, since this place I moved to is nowhere near big enough for collecting much of anything. I'll be throwing out stuff for some time even yet, since I have a closet full of junk I haven't used or even looked at in years, and my bedroom is the same way. I put some of it under my bed, but I haven't looked at that stuff much either. Oh well, one of these days I'll get caught up, but as much stuff as I still have, it will take a very long time. I don't want to do much with the stuff under the bed due to an accident I had about a year and a half ago, caused when I lost my balance, fell and was wedged between the bed and a chest of drawers for hours (!) looking under there.

One dollar in eBay fees? I think you must be joking, as eBay charges some fairly hefty fees just to list an item there. Add to that the cost of packing materials, shipping, and other incidental expenses, and you will arrive at a total far more than $1. If you are shipping an especially large item, say a console TV, the shipping charges will be very high. Make sure the contents of any package you ship are well-protected, as some carriers are somewhat less than gentle with parcels. I have read here more than once of packages that arrived at their destinations smashed or otherwise mutilated; in fact, I had a radio shipped to me from Arizona via UPS some years ago that arrived here with loose potentiometers, not to mention other damage. One of the damaged parts was a NLA (no longer available) 2-megohm stereo pot used as a volume control. That radio is now sitting under a cover in my bedroom, unused, and may remain there for years to come, since I am in no position to work on it at this time.

In most cases, eBay won't charge anything unless your item sells.

I bought one of these VCR's on ebay and shipping wasn't bad. The weight matters very little, and the volume is ok since it's a regular rectangular shape. I restored it and it actually works very well with great quality.

I occasionally put some vintage stuff on ebay as well, and I have never paid a fee up front. They'll eat some of your profit though, but for this stuff you don't make a profit at all.

I still use my Panasonic PV-4022 VCR, but not nearly as much these days since getting a DVD player (an LG BP-220) several years ago; my DVD collection is becoming almost (but nowhere near, yet) as large as my VHS collection. If I can find the DVD versions of shows I presently have on VHS, I will get the DVD.

Eventually, I will retire the VHS player, but not as long as it works and I still have my VHS collection. I have many videocassettes, mostly of old TV series and some movies from the 1950s through the '80s. VCRs still have uses if you have old VHS tapes; the only thing you can't do anymore with them, due to the change from analog to digital video in 2009, is record TV shows off the air. VHS video is all but obsolete, DVDs having taken center stage by now. I read somewhere (don't recall where) that even DVDs are on the way out, but what their replacement will be I don't know at this point.

Time marches on.

DVD sales are definitely down, due to the use of streaming video.

You can absolutely record DTV on a VCR....you just need a DTV converter box with analog RF ch3 output or analog composite audio/video input...Why you would WANT to record DTV to VHS these days is a bigger question.
There are DVD recorders that work just like VCRs (infact many were DVD recorder/VCR combos)...those are even fairly obsolete. There are 2 successors Blu-ray recorders (which are rare in the US because Hollywood) and USB memory or HDD based recorders...there are DTV boxes that will record the digital video directly to a USB stick or USB HDD and play it back. There's also devices designed to record from HDMI sources...I use one called the " HDML cloner box". VWestlife on YouTube did a review of some of its features. I use a HDMI splitter model that is known to strip copy protection from HDMI between the cloner box and cable box and record cable shows to a 64GB USB stick. The box will play them back or I can plug the USB stick into my computer and watch and edit video(which reduces file size by more than half) there. The graphics card in my computer has HDMI output so I can watch anything my computer can play on my TV.

:worthless

I have 2 Betamax machines, one that I use daily for time shifting. In the bedroom I have a Sony KV-1920 set, vintage 1975 hooked up to a digital converter. I have a Sony SL2000/TT2000 hooked up to tape Becker every night from Antenna TV. In the living room I have a Sony 32" vintage 1995 also hooked up to a digital converter and a Sony SL2500 Betamax machine, the sleek front loader deck. I use the bedroom deck everyday to tape and then in the living room maybe a couple of times a week to just playback. I'm still amazed these old items still work very well. The Sony KV-1920 was the SG613 set model that tv techs hated to service. But work great when they work.

You should try it beachboy and see if she works :)