These VHS Tapes Of Classic Movies Are Worth A Ton Of Money

For a period of about two decades beginning in the late-1970s, VHS tapes were the de facto format for watching movies in the comfort of your home. A trek to the video rental store on Friday nights was like a right of passage for many families. Alternatively, perhaps a film was loved so much that it was given a forever home as a retail purchase. In the case of the latter, if the content is iconic and the tapes themselves are in pristine condition, they could be worth a surprising amount of money.

Sometimes, as with Money Digest's recent piece on the most valuable vinyl records, an collectible item must be autographed or be particularly rare to have serious value. The great news with certain valuable VHS tapes, however, is that they were widely available, popular mainstream films from the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond. This increases the possibility that your treasure hunt will actually strike gold.

VHS tapes do degrade over time, so the most desirable ones are frequently still sealed in their original plastic wrapping. Even so, you'll still want to ship the tape to a reputable specialist to be graded on physical condition if your goal is to get top dollar for your prize. One popular provider of grading services is CGC Home Video, which charges approximately $35 for its standard service. As you'll see from some of the most valuable VHS tapes below, that grading fee could be a wise investment.

In 2022, the iconic film "Top Gun" was once again thrust into the limelight following the release of its sequel, "Top Gun: Maverick," which gave its star Tom Cruise a huge payday. (See 17 movies that gave actors their biggest payday.) The original tale of Cruise's Lt. Pete Mitchell was unleashed just in time for the summer of 1986. One year later, VHS copies of "Top Gun" were available for purchase and sold like hotcakes. This was partly because the price was among the lowest of any videocassettes at the time. That's perplexing considering the popularity of the film, but kudos to the studio for doing so.

As you might imagine, "Top Gun" had a bunch of promotional and advertising tie-ins. In fact, the United States military itself was a prime benefactor of the movie's popularity, which created a surge in enrollment. Also, in the midst of the Cola wars of the 1980s, Pepsi invested big, with an $8 million marketing campaign revolving around "Top Gun." In particular, Pepsi was promoting its Diet Pepsi beverage and created a co-branded videocassette that featured fresh new artwork from the movie's previous VHS iterations. In 2022, one of these rare Diet Pepsi promo VHS tapes was bid up to $17,500 on the Heritage Auctions website.

Steven Speilberg is a filmmaker who would receive acclaim for classics like "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." But before those films, there was 1975's "Jaws," which had the unique distinction of being one of the first mainstream movies to have significant portions shot on the ocean. At the time of its release, it was the highest-grossing film ever, but during production, "Jaws" went way over budget and instilled fear — not shark-related, but monetary — into its financiers.

Like some other famous 1970s films, it took several years for VHS copies of "Jaws" to become available for rent or purchase. Indeed, the first tapes hit video stores some five years later in 1980. Fast forward to June 2022 and an auction at Heritage Auctions, where a sealed "Jaws" from 1983 — distinct for not being a first edition from 1980 — sold for $32,500. If you land a similar find from your local thrift store, you're going to need a bigger boat for all that cash.

Richard Donner's "The Goonies" is a quintessential childhood classic about a ragtag group of kids hunting pirate treasure to save their homes from foreclosure. Although "The Goonies" exploded onto the big screen in 1985, there was a lag of almost a year until home-video editions became available. This popular movie has been re-released on VHS many, many times, but it's the original 1986 version that's worth pursuing. A brand-new, sealed copy sold for a cool $50,000 in June 2022.

The year 1985 was indeed fortuitous for big-screen blockbusters. Beside "The Goonies," theater goers also watched a modified DeLorean sports car transport Michael J. Fox back to 1955 in "Back to the Future," the success of which spawned two sequels. Like Goonies, there was a lag between the theatrical release and home video.

When "Back to the Future" finally made it to VHS in 1986, fans had to cough up a lofty $79.95 to make it their own. That's equal to about $230 in 2024 dollars due to inflation (here, by the way, are the three main causes of inflation). Still, splashing out for a very early copy of this classic would've been a great investment. In 2022, a sealed and graded example hit a home run at $75,000 in a Heritage Auctions auction.

When the first, err, fourth "Star Wars," later renamed "Star Wars: A New Hope" was released in 1977, it was unlike anything the world had ever seen. Besides cutting-edge special effects, the space opera put the acting careers of relatively unknown actors like Mark Hamill and Harrison Ford into hyperdrive. "Star Wars" was so successful that it showed in theaters for an entire year. However, it wasn't released on VHS tape until four years later in 1981. And even then, the tapes were only available for rental, not purchase.

Early on, some unscrupulous video rental stores skirted this no-purchase rule against selling by granting customers "lifetime rentals" for exorbitant prices, per CGC Comics, while other copies had a habit of simply disappearing. In 1982, 20th Century Fox finally capitulated and released VHS copies of "Star Wars: A New Hope" that were suitable for retail sales. If buyers/fans had the self control to abstain from watching their newly purchased treasure, they would be well rewarded in the present. In October 2022, a sealed copy of the fourth (first) "Star Wars" circa 1982 sold on the auction site Goldin for an unbelievable $114,000.