Someone who got it from their parents for xmas and they hate sci-fi but they didn’t have the heart to give it away. Someone who loved the movie so much that they bought two copies since there was a sale and then eventually got the DVD so the second copy sat unused. I can think of scenarios all day. I know people who were prescient enough to know that Star Wars stuff would be valuable some day and kept those action figures in the box and pristine. I know way more people who saved stupid shit that no one wants.
A great example is postage stamps. Collecting those went way out of style and very few people care anymore. Obviously the very rare and very old stuff still has value. Like baseball cards, lots of people saved sheets of stamps because “they’ll be valuable someday”. Sorry, grandpa, they made tens of millions of 1972 Olympic stamps. No one cares. People will find sheets and sheets of 1960s to 1980s stamps in a box at their parents house. They are worth exactly face value so you can use them up for the letters that you mail for the rest of your life and barely make a dent or sell them in bulk for half of face value. People who ship out catalogs like them and the wrappers will be covered in vintage stamps.
This reminds me of a thread that was posted here. Somebody was talking about a family member who had died and another family member was clearing all of the property out of the house as quickly as possible so they could sell the house for a quick windfall.
It was mentioned that one of the items of property that had been cleared out was a complete collection of Playboy magazines. The poster said it was a complete collection, with even rare early issues. Several of us pointed out that if that was true, the collection would have been worth considerably more than the house.
You may be right about the home version. But I saw Empire and Jedi when they were released, and nobody back then would have referred to the 1977 movie as “A New Hope.” Regardless of what subtitle Lucas stuck in the re-releases back then, nobody would have known what the hell you were talking about.
The first I recall hearing the name was at the time Ep 1 was released, and I assumed (found out otherwise, obviously) it was the title of Ep 1.
I looked at that list to see if Song of the South was on it and was surprised that it wasn’t. That led me to see that “Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama” did not make the cut.
In the 1980 rerelease of Star Wars that coincided with the release of ESB, there were a number of subtle changes, not as subtle changes, and the title change to add Ep. IV: ANH. The crawl was changed.
Seeing it on the big screen was, I think, the first time I’d heard a change was going to happen. No one wanted the change, and us olde fartes still don’t call it ANH. But Lucas doesn’t care. Big Brother has changed history, and it has always been ANH, Greedo always shot first.
My wife’s sister has a son who is on the low-functioning scale of autism. He loves all the things Disney, and will watch and rewatch Disney movies continuously. Grab a VHS tape, put it in the slot, and it starts playing.
When movies on DVDs started showing up, they were too complicated for him to operate, since he would have to navigate a series of menus before you could play the movie. He can’t read, and since the sequence would vary between DVDs, he couldn’t memorize the magic keypresses to get the movie started.
Streaming? They’re hard for him. He’s now 40 years old, and can navigate some sites that have large graphics and logos he can navigate to. But he still prefers VHS tapes, and will play them over and over until they get worn out.
If it’s his favorite movie, you bet that his parents will pay premium for a VHS tape, even if it’s not MIB.
eBay can be a goldmine for seemingly weird old stuff for people with autism and toddlers. I’ve sold a few pieces of old toys (not even the whole toy) that people are buying for their autistic kids, because they’ve worn out the original and are teens but still obsessed with the toy. Just last month I sold just the stylus of a talking globe toy that wasn’t working. I spoke with the buyer and he said it was for his autistic son.
I have a friend who’s son will only use one type of toothpaste and it went out of production so the whole community gathered 'round and bought up all of this toothpaste available on resale sites.
Soft baby/toddler toys like plushies and blankets are highly sought after too, when it’s the kid’s security toy and they have plain worn it out.
That’s what I’m saying; you can’t really predict that sort of thing, and generally it’s just dumb luck as to whether something in your attic is actually worth something later.
That’s the silly thing about collecting for many- they concentrate on the value, rather than whatever it is about the collection that makes them happy in the first place
That happened with a toothpaste that I liked. It was a specialized type that was a little more expensive than normal. One day on Amazon it was like $30/tube. It was discontinued and some asshole bought them all. It was easy enough to find an equivalent that suited me fine but I’d be irate if it was the only kind my kid would use