As part of a downsizing project eight years ago I purged most of my pre-recorded VHS tape collection. I've never been a big collector of movies -- my DVD library is fairly small -- but the fact is I had accumulated around 70 tapes:
Doctor Who: The Curse of Peladon (1972) For me this is the representative story of Doctor Who. It has: Freaky aliens, atmospheric settings, memorable characters ("Hepesh!"), effective jeopardy, a murder mystery, terrific lines of dialogue ("I'm the Earth ambassador!"), and just the right number of episodes to tell the tale.
"The Curse of Peladon" is perfect Who -- the 'balance of things' is just right. And as a Brit might say, "It's a cracking good story!".
Proof of purchase: I bought the VHS of "Peladon" after doing a little pricing power play. It was January of 1996; I saw the tape in HMV -- on lower Yonge Street here in Toronto -- and then made the natural progression to the great Sam the Record Man store a few doors down and noticed "Peladon" was there too, but at one dollar more in price. (It should be stated that "Sam's" almost always had better pricing.) I went up to the sales guy behind the counter and told him what HMV was charging for the same tape. The quiet man, without saying a word, pulled out his label machine and popped out a price to match the competitor's. Sold. (My wording makes it look as though I had to have that videotape of "The Curse of Peladon".)
2 comments:
Last month I sold off a huge bag of my VHS tapes for first offer. No bargaining instinct, so $10 - hardly worth lugging to Bloor/Spadina area. Two major trilogies and such fare as Soul Man (C. Thomas Howell in blackface).
Most stores pay 1-2 dollars per tape. It sounds like you had a few bucks worth.
Thanks for the notes.
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