{"id":3680,"date":"2013-11-11T00:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-11-11T05:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smugfilm.com\/?p=3680"},"modified":"2013-11-13T03:49:59","modified_gmt":"2013-11-13T08:49:59","slug":"how-to-collect-blu-rays-and-dvds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/how-to-collect-blu-rays-and-dvds\/","title":{"rendered":"How (And Why) To Collect Blu-Rays and DVDs"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"collection\"
\nA small portion of my collection.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re reading this site, you probably love movies, and if so, you should probably collect them. Now, before you say \u201cNo way, collecting is for turkeys!\u201d and turn me down like I\u2019m a bad influence out of a <\/span><\/b>Ninja Turtles PSA<\/span><\/a>, let me explain\u2014this is for your <\/i>benefit. Collecting gets a bad rap these days, what with shows like Hoarders<\/a> and whatnot, but a real collector ain\u2019t like those people. A real collector is fucking G. <\/i>Not to toot my own horn, but I own over a thousand Blu-Rays and DVDs, and if I sold them all off right now, not only would I break even, I\u2019d turn a profit. <\/i>My collection pays for itself. I repeat\u2014the movies I love\u00a0pay for themselves. <\/i>Wanna be like me? Here\u2019s how.<\/span><\/b>
\n
\nNever Pay Full Price For Anything<\/b><\/p>\n

When I say \u2018full price\u2019, I don\u2019t mean MSRP (Manufacturer\u2019s Suggested Retail Price). Nobody<\/i> pays MSRP. What is MSRP, you might ask? Basically, that\u2019s that lame price they automatically cross out on Amazon or whatever. Like if you go to a Blu-Ray on there, it\u2019ll say $29.99 or something and it\u2019ll be crossed out, and then there\u2019s the regular price underneath (let\u2019s say $22.99 or whatever, if it\u2019s a new release). So when I say \u2018Never Pay Full Price\u2019 I mean that <\/i>price, not the crossed out one which nobody ever pays. Always pay way less than the price a thing typically goes for. The logic of this being that if you always buy a movie for, or even less, than what you can resell it for, your collection will always pay for itself, or even turn a profit.<\/p>\n

Now, this isn\u2019t always possible. Some stuff, you just gotta bite the bullet on. For instance, Twilight Time<\/a>, who do limited-to-3000-copies Blu-Ray runs of some great stuff (Hard Times<\/a>, Body Double<\/a>, The Driver<\/a>) which cost a set price of $29.95, plus shipping. But the beauty of this is, since they\u2019re limited to 3000, once there\u2019s no more, they sell for way<\/em> more eBay. Sometimes like upwards of $200. But don\u2019t be that guy, don\u2019t buy limited run shit just to turn it around on eBay. At least, don’t make a habit of it. For the most part, simply treat yourself to a full priced thing that you want after having bought a bunch of other stuff that\u2019s way cheaper than what you could resell them for. That $29.95 plus shipping might sound like a lot, but if you\u2019ve bought a bunch of blu-rays at like $4.99 each and now they go for like $9.99, resell those, and the $34.95 is covered.<\/p>\n

Resell Stuff, Don\u2019t Just Hoard<\/b><\/p>\n

Reselling is the key here. Not just buying and buying and buying. You resell the movies you don\u2019t want anymore in order to pay for the ones you do want. Your collection should be an ever-evolving, ever-changing organism that never grows too big. Sure, there\u2019ll be movies you\u2019re all sentimental about and will never sell\u2014that\u2019s your \u2018core\u2019. But said core should always be surrounded by a thick layer of fat of movies you\u2019re cool with watching a few times and then getting rid of.<\/p>\n

Reselling in trade-in stores is for the birds. You\u2019ll get damn near nothing. The exception being that sometimes stores like Best Buy will have special trade-in offers where you can get $5 off a new movie if you trade in an old one, regardless of whether the old one is even worth<\/i> $5. So that\u2019s a good way to get rid of movies nobody wants. But in general, any used movie store ain\u2019t gonna give you much. Instead, sell online.<\/p>\n

Start up an eBay account if you don\u2019t have one already, and sell on there and Half.com. Also sell on Amazon Marketplace. See what a movie is going for on all three places, and list it on the one where it\u2019s going for the most. Simple as that. When it sells (this can take a while sometimes, but it\u2019ll happen) buy some generic bubble mailers, and mail your shit promptly. It won\u2019t take long to build up great feedback, and when you have that, your shit will sell more frequently. Make sure to read the fine print though, and see how much commission these sites take. Some reimburse shipping cost, which is nice. Factor in all of that, including bubble mailer cost, when figuring out how much you can make from reselling a thing. Often you\u2019ll simply break even, but if you know how to spot trends, you can make a profit\u2014sometimes a huge one.<\/p>\n

Spot Future OOP Items A Mile Away<\/b><\/p>\n

OOP stands for Out Of Print. This shoots the price of an item up like crazy. The most common stuff to go OOP is TV box sets. If you can spot ones that are likely to go OOP, you can turn a big profit. Keep an eye out for shows that have a rabid but small fan base. A good example: Gerry Anderson\u2019s shows. There was a time you could get the Stingray<\/a> box set for like $12.99. I bought it back then, predicting it would go OOP just like a lot of other A&E niche titles have. I was right, and I turned it around a year or two later for over $100. I\u2019ve done this with many other titles. Unlike buying limited run Twilight Time stuff solely to resell it, this isn\u2019t evil, because you\u2019re not screwing people who want something out of having it. The day a Twilight Time release goes for sale, resellers flood the site buying the title and sometimes it sells out completely in like an hour or two. Then they go and sell the shit on eBay to the people who generally wanted it, for a jacked up price. That\u2019s fucked up. Same thing happens with concert tickets. People are dicks.<\/p>\n

Track The Lowest Prices On Stuff<\/b>\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

I\u2019m a member of the Something Awful<\/a> forums, and there\u2019s a great thread on there where people post about DVD and Blu-Ray price drops on sites. That\u2019s how I find about most deals. But if you don\u2019t feel like paying $10 to become a member of the forums, you can always just use sites like DealCatcher<\/a>\u00a0or Blu-Ray.com<\/a>. For all I know, there are better ones out there than those two, but they’re pretty good. If you have any suggestions of better sites for deals, leave them in the comments.<\/p>\n

The best time of the year for online deals tends to be from November to Christmas, so treat yourself to gifts that literally<\/em> keep on giving, since you can resell them in like six months or whatever.<\/p>\n

Keep Your Shit In Great Condition<\/b><\/p>\n

Reselling your shit in six months or so doesn\u2019t work if you\u2019re a slob with your shit. You want to make sure you can always get the best price possible, and that\u2019s not gonna happen if your discs are covered in smudges and scratches, and your boxes are all dinged up. Hold the disc properly, put it in the machine, and put it back in the box when not watching it. Pretty straight forward. Don\u2019t leave your discs laying about, an don\u2019t toss the box around. Just be responsible, dang it. And don\u2019t<\/em> smoke.<\/i> If you can write \u2018non-smoking home\u2019 in your item description, that\u2019s a great selling point. Nobody likes ordering a used DVD online and getting it in the mail and it smells like cigarette butts. Smokers who are collectors baffle me. That shit fucks the resale value of damn near any collectible.<\/p>\n

Use Barnes & Noble Coupons<\/b><\/p>\n

If you become a member at Barnes & Noble, you get 10% off any item. You also get coupons in your inbox here and there for an extra 20% off. Usually this coupon will coincide with at least a few days of Barnes & Noble\u2019s 50% off Criterion sales, which means you can get Criterion titles for 80% off.<\/em> Mind you, that\u2019s 80% off of MSRP, but that\u2019s still an insanely good price. It basically ensures that any Criterion you buy, you can resell for more than you paid for it. Plus, Criterion titles tend to go OOP here and there as their rights to certain titles lapse.<\/p>\n

Hunt Bargain Bins, Used Stores, Swap Meets, Etc.<\/b><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know where you live, so I can\u2019t give specific advice here, but you know what I mean. There\u2019s always somewhere local to buy things for amounts that haven\u2019t been chosen based on online prices or whatever. And where there\u2019s that, there\u2019s deals to be had. It\u2019s such a fucking rush to find a DVD in a used bin for $5 that you know goes for like $50 online.<\/p>\n

Apply All Of This Advice To Collecting Other Things<\/b><\/p>\n

Movies are fun to collect and all, but so is music, and books, and guitars, and all sorts of other stuff. Pick your poison. Whatever it is you love, collect the shit out of it, and collect the shit out of it smartly.\u00a0<\/i>The advice I gave here applies to collecting pretty much anything. Have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"collection\"
\nA small portion of my collection.<\/em><\/p>\n

If you\u2019re reading this site, you probably love movies, and if so, you should probably collect them. Now, before you say \u201cNo way, collecting is for turkeys!\u201d and turn me down like I\u2019m a bad influence out of a <\/span><\/b>Ninja Turtles PSA<\/span><\/a>, let me explain\u2014this is for your <\/i>benefit. Collecting gets a bad rap these days, what with shows like Hoarders<\/a> and whatnot, but a real collector ain\u2019t like those people. A real collector is fucking G. <\/i>Not to toot my own horn, but I own over a thousand Blu-Rays and DVDs, and if I sold them all off right now, not only would I break even, I\u2019d turn a profit. <\/i>My collection pays for itself. I repeat\u2014the movies I love\u00a0pay for themselves. <\/i>Wanna be like me? Here\u2019s how.<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,18],"tags":[3200,3198,1000,32,3208,3197,3207,3203,630,3199,3196,3195,3194,3201,3202,104,185,3206,3205,3204],"class_list":["post-3680","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-allposts","category-codysessays","tag-blu-ray-collecting","tag-bluray-collecting","tag-body-double","tag-cody-clarke","tag-dealcatcher","tag-dvd-collecting","tag-gerry-anderson","tag-hard-times","tag-hoarders","tag-how-to-collect-blu-rays","tag-how-to-collect-blurays","tag-how-to-collect-dvds","tag-how-to-collect-movies","tag-movie-collecting","tag-ninja-turtles","tag-smug-film-2","tag-smugfilm","tag-stingray","tag-the-driver","tag-twilight-time"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3680"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3688,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3680\/revisions\/3688"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3680"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3680"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/smugfilm.com\/oldsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}