What a bargain for a VCR! (Montgomery Ward 1981)

[albear.livejournal.com]

I love old technology ads. The prices are ridiculously high! I mean, close to $1,400 for a top loading VCR? that's 1981 money too!

And LOL at the cheapie model complete with a ONE button wired remote! the button is pause! LOL!

Comments

[orangecat62.livejournal.com]

and its a wired remote... NOT wireless!!!

HA!

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

Ha. I love retro VCRs :) I used to repair old machines as a hobby, before tape became completely obsolete for me. The older generation machines were always extremely well built, compared to the last generation plastic-geared tat.

[albear.livejournal.com]

It's called over engineering! making things to last, now things are made to be disposable.

[shep-shepherd.livejournal.com]

Are VCRs still available to buy? I haven't seen them in shops for some time.

[hotpick.livejournal.com]

I don't think so. I know I bought my last one early 2000.

[rustyfox.livejournal.com]

There's the odd VCR / DVD [writer] combined device. I was astounded to see a shelf full of blank VHS tapes in Comet the other day!

[hotpick.livejournal.com]

I remember those prices. Yea, they were pretty expensive when they first came out. Just like dvd players. lol

[behindthechalet.livejournal.com]

we had the model that came after this. my brother put a plastic spoon in the videotape slot.

[greenraven.livejournal.com]

I remember envying a friend at university in the 80s who a VCR just like the top one in this ad. I would have killed for one.

[albear.livejournal.com]

In 1983 I was enviying our friends with an
RCA CED Player (http://www.cedmagic.com/selectavision.html)! it was a very early disc based movie player. It used record album-like discs and the player had a real needle that played the video/audio off the record! Now I think, What the hell was I thinking back then when I was 10. Awful analog technology prone to wear and breakage.

[sceneasfuck.livejournal.com]

i want one of those top-loading vcrs soooo bad (i'm still a loyal follower of the vhs, although they are officially 'dead' as of today). i always see them at thrift stores, but they never work :'(

i love these old technology ads, too, please keep posting them!!

[albear.livejournal.com]

Thank you! :)

I'll try to find more and put them up!

[body-electronic.livejournal.com]

I still have the second one AND the video camera that goes with it. The thing is a BEAST. The battery pack alone is so heavy its like a bar of gold. hahaha

[tohoscope.livejournal.com]

Does the battery pack still hold a charge?

The prices!

[nokomarie.livejournal.com]

I refuse to think that my VCR has died. I just haven't tried hard enough to get it going again. I still have tapes, damnit!

Re: The prices!

[albear.livejournal.com]

Do yourself a favor and dont! I noticed we still had our collection of viewed only once VHS movies. I popped in Die Hard 3 just for the hell of it to our top of the line in 1996 VCR hooked up to our 55" HDTV. Man, it was a total let down! It looked hideous! I then said, we don't need our VHS tapes, glet's get em' outta here! so we Donated our VHS movie collection (http://i42.tinypic.com/315gaye.jpg) to the local public library. They were happy to get em' but oh man! I can't believe that picture quality, (or lack there of)

[onyx-noir.livejournal.com]

I think my dad had the portable one when I was a kid. That was A++ technology at the time.

[salenelle.livejournal.com]

Wow. No wonder we never had one until the late '80's... That sh*t costs money!

[tanwen.livejournal.com]

And the blurb for the "video disc" player at the bottom! I remember those, they were frickin' huge! Like a CD with a thyroid problem.

[shirogirl.livejournal.com]

When I was a kid my mother worked in the office of Montgomery Ward and we had that exact VCR :O We also had a Betamax lol

[miss-october.livejournal.com]

I remember when my parents first got a vcr. It was the early 80s. It was all so exciting!

God I'm old.

[monimania.livejournal.com]

not as old as me! ha~

[jetsetxheart.livejournal.com]

i love how VCRs are now vintage

[monimania.livejournal.com]

our first one was a top loader, we got it when the prices went down, I lived in california in 1986 and they had a VCR in the rental with a remote with a wire, I have to say starting and stopping is more accurate than a real remote! I taped many episodes of Gumby and I got rid of all the commericals!

[teardropflower.livejournal.com]

I was born in '88 but I remember my grandparents, even my parents having a VCR like of these; they were huge and heavy. lol