They’re Still Not Making Laser Discs Are They? (1 Viewer)

[buddybluray]

I'm trying to dig thru lots of old gear and media in order to move it out as we need the space. One thing that I have been ignoring is a big rack of laserdiscs that I really need to get rid of. I haven't counted thru them but would guess there are between 350-500+ LD's that include everything from B-rated movies to some of my favorite box sets like The Star Wars Trilogy, Alien(s), The Wizard of Oz, etc (and I remember correctly, there 'may' be a few Criterion).

Is there a market of used LD's and if so, where? Otherwise, these will likely end up in the landfill...

Hey Brian! LDDB.com is a great way to sell some and make some money. I'd request that you not toss them. If anything, maybe offer just to sell them for the cost of shipping. Hit me up! I may be interested

 

[JoshZ]

I'm trying to remember...was Laser Craze the one that ended up moving to Danvers before it eventually gave up the ghost?

Laser Craze was on Newbury St. just down the block from Tower Records. Their shopping bags had a distinctive orange spiral logo. The owner closed up shop at the first announcement of DVD more than a year before the actual product launch.

 

[JoshZ]

A few items I've held onto.

 

[JoshZ]

There was also another LD store in Waltham, just down the street from S&S. Can't recall the name. In fact, if my memory isn't completely shot, I believe that S&S was originally their catalog-sales entity spinning off on its own.

This sounds really familiar, but I also can't recall the name of the store. Not sure I ever went to that one.

The Sight & Sound people were great. When my copy of the Star Wars Definitive Collection suffered laser rot, they let me mix-and-match discs from three separate copies to compile a clean set.

After Laser Craze folded, there was a video store in Cambridge that continued to rent Laserdiscs for a while, but that was too much out of my way and I didn't do it very often. Don't remember the name.

 

[Angelo Colombus]

I still have the Criterion 1994 Comprehensive Laserdisc Guide and it was a good source of info on prices and extras on the disc.

 

[Jeffrey D]

Anyone remember Ken Cranes? I ordered a ton of stuff through them. I think they were in California. Another place I used to visit frequently was a place called Laserland- it was on US30, west of Philadelphia. As Archie and Edith sang, Those were the days!

 

[jayembee]

Laser Craze was on Newbury St. just down the block from Tower Records. Their shopping bags had a distinctive orange spiral logo. The owner closed up shop at the first announcement of DVD more than a year before the actual product launch.

Yeah, I remember the Newbury St. location. I also remember one of the workers at S&S (first name Arthur, last name forgotten) left there to work at LC when it opened. I was trying to remember if they were the ones who ended up in Danvers later on. I recall making a number of trips up there before they closed.

This sounds really familiar, but I also can't recall the name of the store. Not sure I ever went to that one.

The Sight & Sound people were great. When my copy of the Star Wars Definitive Collection suffered laser rot, they let me mix-and-match discs from three separate copies to compile a clean set.

After Laser Craze folded, there was a video store in Cambridge that continued to rent Laserdiscs for a while, but that was too much out of my way and I didn't do it very often. Don't remember the name.

Memory, aided by a little hunting around, says that the place "down the street" from S&S was Instant Replay. At the time I first found out about them, they were located right next to the cinemas that were off of I-95 at Trapelo Road. They also had a mail-order LD business called Wok Tok, which is what I referred to previously as spinning off into an independent business that turned into Sight & Sound.

Instant Replay relocated to a small side street right off of Main St. (Route 117), about where I-95 passes over it (or under; it's been a long time since I've been in that area). Sight & Sound ended up relocating just up 117 a bit from there, from its original location near downtown Waltham.

Back in the day, I had a list of a couple of dozen places in the Greater Boston area I'd go to looking for LDs. Northward to Danvers, Nashua (NH), and Salem (NH), westward to Worcester.

 

[AnthonyClarke]

I had a loan of a PAL laserdisc player for a few weeks, while I was a journalist on The Age. Loved it. But like my Melbourne compatriot Oldtimer, everything paled into insignificance when DVDs came onto the scene. I'm still surprised how good the quality of some DVDs are (sadly, only some). 'Annie Get Your Gun' is a prime example of how good that format was -- still is, I should say, although it's years since I bought a DVD.