How much are your old laser discs worth?

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The Sixth Day Laser Disc

Today, laser disc value. Flipsy is an online resource for “people selling stuff”, according to its mission statement webpage. The company claims to provide consistently accurate information on the value of a number of product categories.

This week, the company published a story on the value of old laser discs, and came up with some quite revealing data. The kind of questions they wanted to ask were what would be the cash value of an original Pulp Fiction disc, are any laser discs worth more than $1,000, and at a garage sale, which titles would flip for quick cash?

The Cell Laser Disc Value

The company says it interviewed top laser disc experts to find out which titles are the most wanted, how to identify their value, and the best means by which to sell them. Among the answers they found were that both Pulp Fiction and Blade Runner: Director’s Cut could actually fetch $1,000, and a copy of Tarsem Singh’s cult horror The Cell could easily line your pockets with a cool $2,500.

Flipsy says its research and accompanying article are a great resource for anyone who has old laser discs and, of course, home theater enthusiasts. Flipsy also asks that if you have any other gems of information on laser disc values that you’ve personally gleaned, they’d like to hear from you, so they can add it to their database.

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Noel Aguirre

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Song of the South w Obi?
Star Wars with Han shooting first and no "Episode IV A New Hope" scroll?
And any CAV disc as far as I'm concerned- especially animation?
 

Angelo Colombus

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I do have the first three James Bond films released by Criterion with the commentary. Eon Productions had a issue with the commentary and told Criterion to stop making them and re-release them with no commentary track. I also have The Godfather Trilogy 1901-1980 which has the two movies together in chronological order.
 

Noel Aguirre

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Ahh yes young Skywalker you were listening - I was waiting for that response. However Han still shoots first- and in CAV- so there can be no denying!
 

Brian Kidd

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Ahh yes young Skywalker you were listening - I was waiting for that response. However Han still shoots first- and in CAV- so there can be no denying!
However, it's far-harder to obtain a LD where Han doesn't shoot first. There are tons of different releases of the original Star Wars Trilogy on LD. I mean, it's Star Wars. The prices on sets like the Definitive Collection and the "Faces" releases are sometimes artificially inflated, considering the number of copies of them that are in the wild. You can go to eBay any day of the week and find them listed. Still, if people are willing to overpay for something that isn't at all rare, that's their own business.

Most laserdiscs can still be had for a song, compared to what they would have cost when they were released. Honestly, it's rare to find LD content that didn't get a DVD release. It exists, but it's mostly esoteric content and not feature films. I still occasionally purchase laserdiscs of things because I like the cover art, it has supplements that weren't carried over to DVD, or it never got a DVD. The latter are pretty rare, though, I'm finding.

It's honestly harder to find DVD's of some things these days because they've gone out of print and third-party sellers are asking outrageous prices for them. Try picking up any of the later Walt Disney Treasures releases for anything less than a couple hundred dollars each. It's not easy, if downright impossible in several cases.

EDIT: Just looked on eBay for a few of the titles in that list. Um.. yeah. They didn't do much research, it seems.

That list on LDDB shows how much someone listed a disc for, not what someone would actually pay for it. Heck, that Pulp Fiction is a Taiwan release in P&S. People can list something for any amount they want, but that doesn't mean it's what the item is worth or will reasonably fetch on the market. It's pure click-bait.

OK, not total click-bait, I guess, but you pretty much have to read the entire article to get the honest answer to the click-bait-y headline. Definitely burying the lede.

Your LaserDiscs Could Be Worth $250 or More – (but they are almost certainly not.)
 
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The Drifter

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Just to point out something here: If you want to see the Original, unaltered Star Wars Trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), you don't need LD's to see these. These films are available on Disk 2 (special features) of the Original Trilogy 2006 DVD releases - and, my understanding is that these DVD prints are essentially the same non-Anamorphic prints from the LD's. Yes, these 2006 DVD's are now OOP, but they are out there:

http://www.startribune.com/original...on-dvd-if-you-re-willing-to-settle/360627281/
 

Worth

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Just to point out something here: If you want to see the Original, unaltered Star Wars Trilogy (1977, 1980, 1983), you don't need LD's to see these. These films are available on Disk 2 (special features) of the Original Trilogy 2006 DVD releases - and, my understanding is that these DVD prints are essentially the same non-Anamorphic prints from the LD's. Yes, these 2006 DVD's are now OOP, but they are out there:

http://www.startribune.com/original...on-dvd-if-you-re-willing-to-settle/360627281/
There are much better versions than that out there.
 

David Norman

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There are much better versions than that out there.

Those are the best Legal versions then though I'd argue the Laserdiscs on a very good player provide a better picture.


You can ask whatever price you want from old laserdiscs, but what prices do they actually sell for. I see some stupid prices asked for routine items (P/S Little Mermaid, open, no autographs, et) , Several hundred dollars for the mass overproduced Jurassic Park sets.

Pristine cover, sealed discs just aren;t commonly available so even if you have the exact item, the chances they'd be worth a fraction of what some of those prices suggest is unlikely even if you could find a collector who wanted it.

I have several mint sealed Disney LD Premium boxsets, but I have no delusions any of them are going to fetch triple digits much less 4 figures (even if I was going to sell them). I'm actually not sure what my rarest item is, but likely one of the DTS discs?

I do have a sealed copy of Armageddon DTS. I have a bunch of the DTS discs that are listed up to $200-300 each. I just checked sold listing and I have U571 AC3 (released 2001 so one of the latest production items) Japanese disc appears to have sold for $450 to someone (preowned even). Hoodlum DTS sold for $300.
 
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Worth

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I never thought the final laserdiscs looked all that great. There was a lot of DNR applied, giving them a smeary look. I actually thought the first letterboxed laserdiscs were superior.

star-wars-dv.jpg
71w1JI++RQL._SX342_.jpg
return-of-the-jedi-3-dv.jpg
 

The Drifter

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I've seen Star Wars: A New Hope on LD, and was not impressed by the PQ - very washed out, flat colors & a sub-par picture. Unfortunately, the '77, '80, and '83 original, unedited versions of the Star Wars films are not available anywhere in a decent DVD/Blu format.
 

Worth

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I've seen Star Wars: A New Hope on LD, and was not impressed by the PQ - very washed out, flat colors & a sub-par picture. Unfortunately, the '77, '80, and '83 original, unedited versions of the Star Wars films are not available anywhere in a decent DVD/Blu format.
They are, but not strictly legally.
 
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