‘Iconic’: VHS tapes far from obsolete in some collecting communities

CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg takes a closer look at the the comeback of VHS tapes in Edmonton.

Antony Cimpianu recalls his love for collecting VHS tapes starting from a young age. Younger, at least, than his current age of 14 years.

With around 400-500 tapes, 200 of which are rare finds, the teenager is always on the hunt for physical media from before his time.

“My first one was the Star Wars set, sealed, at least that I remember, because I was big into that stuff and I always saw them in my basement,” he said.

Now, Cimpianu frequents stores like the Stony Plain Movie World to look for his new interests: 70s and 90s horror, 80s sci-fi. He peruses shelves for spines with distributor labels he knows he loves, like Vestron Video, Prism or Lightning Video.

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VHS tape production, of course, was taken out of rotation long ago in an era of on-demand video and television. Despite being what many consider an obsolete technology, Cimpianu said that only heightens the appeal.

“They’re yours forever now, no streaming service is going to stop it and cut it off … the appeal of it, to me, is just how it’s not perfect, right?” he said in an interview Saturday.

“It’s not 4K, where it’s crisp, clear. It kind of has that character to it. It’s not fizzy. It sometimes doesn’t look the best, but that’s why I like it.”

And he’s not alone in that sentiment, either. Anecdotally, a growing community in the Edmonton area is still holding on to the perfect imperfection of VHS tapes.

Kevin Martin, proprietor of The Lobby DVD Shop in Edmonton, can attest to this.

“I’ve had this shop for more than 20 years, and VHS was dead for the first, I’d say, 10 or 15 years in my store,” he said. “It was so dead, in fact, that people were just dropping tapes off on my stairwell and leaving them there.”

He’d accept them, he said, if to do nothing more with them than to build his yearly novelty VHS Christmas tree for the holidays.

Then, about a year ago, something shifted. Martin had to open up a storage room in the back of the shop to make a mini video store for growing demand.

He says there are two types of collectors.

“There are the guys that are looking for the most expensive sealed tapes, that have way too much money on their hands and will never open or watch these tapes,” Martin explained.

“And then there are people that just genuinely love watching movies on their old VCRs, and they just buy the cheapest tapes and walk out with piles of them.”

What Martin can’t fully understand, though, is why people are flocking to mediums like VHS or vinyl records now.

“I’d say nostalgia, but most of the average age of the collectors are high school kids or early 20s. So it can’t be nostalgia for them. They weren’t even around when VHS was already dead,” he said.

He speculates instead that kids like Cimpianu are looking to experience what older generations grew up on.

“I always had this theory that, growing up, if you went to a friend’s house, you learn more about that person by looking at their collection … because it tells you a story about who they are and what they’re into,” he added.

Fellow VHS collector Cody Cook said to own a physical copy of media has a certain feeling to it.

“In the digital age, people want tangible things, because, for the most part, everything’s streaming,” he said.

He added that the price of VHS tapes also peaked long ago, making the collection hobby far easier on the wallet in 2025. Lobby Video, for example, sells certain tapes at three for $5.

Still, Martin says he doesn’t expect the interest to stick as much as, say, vinyl collecting.

“I love how it’s younger generations doing it, because I think once they start moving around from house to house, they’ll realize what a pain in the butt it is to (move them),” he joked.

“As far as VHS continuing to come back, they’re going to get tougher and tougher to find. I mean, good luck finding a VCR these days, but now VCRs are going up in price too.”

For now, though, that isn’t stopping avid collectors like Cimpianu.

“They’re important. They’re a piece of history. And there’s not going to be another format like this, VHS is so iconic,” he said.

With files from CTV News Edmonton’s Connor Hogg and Galen McDougall