Sealed VHS copy of iconic ’80s movie sells for record-setting $75,000 at Texas auction

A sealed VHS copy of the movie “Back to the Future” sold for $75,000 at an auction in Dallas.

The tape was one of 260 sold at the auction organized by the Texas-based Heritage Auctions, the company said in a news release said. A collector from New York won the shrink-wrapped copy of the film on Thursday, June 9, “after a heated bidding war,” the company said.

The cassette previously belonged to Tom Wilson, the actor who played character Biff Tannen in the “Back to the Future” trilogy, the release said. It was sold for the highest price ever paid at an auction for a sealed, graded VHS tape, the company said.

The tape also likely set a record for the most expensive videotape to be sold at an auction, WJHL reported.

Wilson’s collection also included sealed VHS copies of “Back to the Future II” and “Back to the Future III,” which sold for $16,250 and $13,750, respectively, the release said.

The event, which was “dedicated solely to the VHS format,” also saw the sales of titles like “The Goonies,” “Jaws,” “Ghostbusters,” “Star Wars” and “Top Gun,” the release said.

The popularity of VHS tapes has diminished over the last two decades, but they’re still beloved by collectors — partially due to nostalgia and partially because sealed tapes from bygone eras are difficult to find, the Heritage Auctions said in the release.

“VHS collectors have never gone away, but interest in sealed VHS has blossomed in a way few could have imagined over the last couple of years,” the company’s VHS consignment director, Jay Carlson, said in the release. “A few years ago, sealed VHS collectors were outliers in the collecting community, so it really is something to see it grow and attract enough new collectors to warrant a standalone auction at a major auction house.”

“Back to the Future” was released in 1985 and became a smash hit, netting over $380 million in the box office worldwide, according to The Numbers.

Heritage Auctions’ event drew almost 600 bidders and collected a total of $584,750, the company said.

This story was originally published June 14, 2022 at 7:52 PM with the headline "Sealed VHS copy of iconic ’80s movie sells for record-setting $75,000 at Texas auction."