Not entirely sure, but it’s in the neighbourhood of two to four years ago. My old one broke, so I replaced it.
I bought a Panasonic about 2 years ago, to replace the Sony that broke down. Never had good luck with Sony equipment, for some reason. It was only 5, 6 years old when it broke down.
I’ve never bought one, always had someone who lived with me who had one. I may pick up one soon, I saved money (in a manner which may be a false economy) by buying on EBay VHS copies of films I liked instead of DVD.
My Dad picked up two in the past couple of years but still has his JVC from back in the early 80s. The remote control suffered from abuse at the hands of small children (who still knew more about programming the machine that its buyer 
) but all the rest still works, one or two buttons are getting a bit worn but apart from that its pretty much as good as new 
about a year ago.
my VCR broke, and I bought a combo DVD-VCR box. DVD with Progressive Scan (which I still don’t have the TV to handle, but I will).
I still tape shows when I have to be out, so I like having it. And, sometimes my movie store won’t have the new release of DVD but they will have the new release on VHS. It’s not a terrible drop off in quality.
About 6-7 years ago. It was one of the last things I bought at Best Buy before The Incident. It was actually a replacement for one I had bought a couple of years earlier and had the extended warranty (I used to go through VCR’s like water). A year or so ago, it began to malfunction so I beat it to death with a hammer.
What is this VCR of which you speak? Is it old “technology” like a VCD? Assuming it’s new technology, is it wireless enabled? Can it be incorporated into a modern PC based entertainment system? It will support HiDef right? 
A few weeks ago, actually. And not because the old one broke.
There’s this great movie theatre/rental place in Boise called The Flicks. They play a lot of independent movies and other features that the big theatres in town won’t touch. For example, they were the only theatre in Boise to play The Aristocrats. Their movie rental place is the only one where I’ve seen movies like Schizopolis, Delicatessen, Eraserhead, or A Boy And His Dog.
However, almost all of their movies are in VHS. So after we rented Pink Flamingos, we had two choices: Watch it on The Innocent Schoolgirl’s little 12" TV/VCR combo, or go buy a VCR. So I went and got a cheapo VCR from Wal-Mart.
I still have ‘my’ first VCR. (Actually, dad bought it. But it was ‘mine’.) It’s a two-piece RCA four-head with top-eject we got in 1985. I cold the CCD-011 camera that we got with it a few months ago. This is real old-school stuff where the camera is connected to the deck by a cord. The battery died and would not hold a charge a couple of years after we got it, and replacement batteries were very expensive. So my friends and I used it on AC or else plugged into the cigarette lighter of the car. AFAIK, the deck still works.
I’ve only been able to find Delicatessen on VHS. This is why I need to keep a VCR. There are too many films I like that are not on DVD. Forbidden Zone only came out on DVD fairly recently, so I had to have a VCR if only for that film! I can’t find my copy of Pink Flamingos, so I’m guessing it’s on VFS and is packed away somewhere. Eraserhead and A Boy And His Dog are both on DVD. (And I have them. ) Bad News Tour (Spinal Tap before Spinal Tap was made) and Eat The Rich (both by Comic Strip are not available on DVD. (If only I could find their The Beat Generation.)
I really need to find my copies of New Wave Theatre (both volumes). When I find them, I’m going to copy them onto DVD.
I bought two VCRs about five years ago. I was doing some archiving at the time, so I’ve got myself a fairly nice Sony and also a Symphonic. Of course, I barely use them now except for the occasional time shifting, but I’ve still got them hooked up so that I could go into dubbing right away if I wanted to.