RonG617

After amassing 1100 dvds and Blu-ray titles I really took a long hard look at all the space it took up and looked at all my pre-orders and realized how much I was spending each month on movies and decided to do some trimming. I realized that at least 60% of the titles I would probably never take off the shelf to watch. I have cable with every movie channel, so some of the movies I might stop and watch on a pass through of the channels, but more than likely would never look for in my collection. So thanks to Ebay and some trading in on Secondspin, I got rid of 700 titles.

I thought I might have remorse afterword, but it really feels good to have a more manageable collection of stuff that I really want. I also cut out blind buying, so the only pre-orders on my radar are Gran Torino and The Wrestler. I also got rid of the kids movies in Blu-ray. With 3 dvd players and 1 Blu-ray in the house, it limited where they could sit and watch a movie, so I downgraded the few Blu-rays in their collection to dvd. They really don't care a bit about picture clarity and resolution.

With my earnings I got a Wii and a bunch of games for the kids and a new Mac computer for myself. The leftover funds can go toward a trip to Disney. That along with a bunch of new open space and a lot of savings each month make this a much more enjoyable hobby for me.

tonyc3742

It definitely sounds like by trimming the quantity for quality you have benefited. Good for you. Nothing wrong with a purge, I think lots of the 'remorse' comes from people selling off their entire collection, especially at a loss, or those few 'special' titles. I've definitely found that too large a collection makes it difficult to do anything with--gee, which of 1100 titles do I feel like watching now? So much choice, it creates a paralysis.

A family trip to Disney, especially if the kids haven't been before, can be a much better memory maker than a 'special edition' of a movie you'll never watch again.

I've looked into purging a good chunk of my collection, but I'd take such a loss on most of the titles it's dissuaded me from doing so.

Brian T

You're not alone:

http://forum.dvdtalk.com/dvd-talk/54...ollection.html

jdslater1

I started reducing my collection a lot recently aswell. I didn't have the collection size you had (at a guess it was under 100) but I would look at it every now and again and think "did I need 5 different versions of Mr & Mrs Smith?". But I bought alot of stuff I could have watched at the cinema for £5 instead of buying the £15 BD/DVD.

I'll take the loss but it builds up my paypal credit and that means I can pay other stuff from ebay (and thus not using "real" money).
I just think nowadays I'm just more careful; with money and use that money to go on holiday and stuff.

DVD Polizei

Congrats. There's nothing better than making your collection work for you instead of just sitting there, collecting dust.

tonyc3742

You have five different versions of Mr and Mrs Smith? I know, to each his own, but...
kidding.
Anyway...Yeah, I've got a bunch of titles listed for sale on Amazon, but I'm also being a lot more proactive and discerning with buying them in the first place. I've only bought 5 titles this year, and two of those were with a gift card.
This can be eyeopening_ there's a free plugin for DVDProfiler called DVD Discount Report that shows the MSRP and price paid for every title, and shows you how much you've "saved" on each title and on your whole collection. The "good" news is, I've saved 66% on my purchases! The bad news is, 33% of a lot is still a lot, and that's only if you take DVDPro's MSRP as gospel

Mr. Cinema

I've sold 2 50-disc dvd lots the last few days.

joltman

If part of it is money, than maybe you should re-consider pre-orders. I personally VERY rarely buy something right when it comes out, I will wait until I can get it cheap via price drops, sales, columbia house or buying it used. In fact, I rarely spend more than about $5 on a DVD. Of course, it helps if you don't mind doing Columbia House, because with an enrollment, you can get lots of stuff, even new stuff, for about $5 after you do the math.

RonG617

The lack of patience really did me in at times. Columbia House is great for getting things cheap as well as the various sales at DD/Amazon. The completionist in me also was a problem. Say for instance I like one of the Friday the 13th movies. Well then I had to get all 10(11 now if you count the remake, or 12 if you count Jason vs Freddy) to complete the collection. Now I am only going to get the stuff I really want and have seen more than once recently so I am sure. Marginal stuff I can save to catch on one of the 40-50 movie channels I have.

izatright

I ended up moving to a new state recently and I went through the same thing. I had about 2K titles, all of which I thought were good or pretty good. I got rid of the good and pretty good and just kept the great and amazing. However, I'm in a really small place so I recently started getting rid of common great and keeping all the really amazing. I still have some above average titles, but they're usually just imports or things I could never find at a video store / netflix.

It was hard at first. I think I got rid of 1K titles. But now that they're gone I don't miss them. Further, I think I did pretty well considering I waited and bought most of them used for $2 to $5. (The used pawn and thrift market in OK was amazing.)

Gizmo

Out of curiosity how much did you get? I've got a box of 50 or so DVDs I'd like to sell but most places give .25, .50 each.

uncle-frank

i did the same thing last year, right now im sitting at around 130-40 including WWE/WWF and television seasons.

i had around 500 before, which is small compared to you. it wasnt about space for me it just seemed like i was always spending and the only play the movies got was on the shelf.

Rammsteinfan

Just sold over 200 DVD's myself (My collection was about 520 before selling) to Rasputin and some on Ebay and made about $500 on the lot. Not so good but not so bad. Now I have alot of space for BD's.

MTRodaba2468

Definitely seems like quite a few people have benefited by going through their collections.

I really don't see my self doing that anytime soon (if at all), but for those who do and benefit from it, all the power to ya.

Carcosa

I've seriously considered cutting down my collection to about half just because it seems a bit ridiculous sometimes when I look at the sheer number of movies I own (about 1200 or more)....with a good number of them probably probably never watched more than once, and some not at all. I have an archivist streak in me and it just may be a problem....

lee_hero

I'm currently contemplating getting rid of my wrestling dvd collection. Most of them I watched when I first bought them and now all they do is collect dust. I know I'm gonna at least weed them down, but maybe all of them.

It would at the least help me get some funds so I can get my son's Disney collection up to date.

oldchuckles

Once I buy a DVD, I keep it for life (unless a new edition is released)! I am taking my huge DVD collection with me to the grave! That's also the plan for my VHS collection and my Laser Disc collection! My home video inventory is like children...can't give any of them away! These movies are family to me.

Navinabob

I decided to get rid of all my non-collection wrestling DVDs. So I kept my compilation DVDs like Best of Shawn Michaels, Best of Undertaker I got rid of my Royal Rumble '06, Summerslam '05. I made a good chunck of change seeing as many of them were pre-blur-logo.

My reasoning was 80% of the stuff on them is usually not worth the 2nd watching and as I get older I like the retrospective commentary more then the actually matches sometimes. Hope that reasoning helps some.

fargodroid

That must have taken its time.

Demonmoon68

im with OLDCHUCKLES dvds for life. i have just about 1700 movies and i would sell my arm before selling one of my movies. someday when im old i want to have the greatest dvd collection possible. 90 percent of my dvds are the OOP editions or special/limited/amazing editions so selling them back would be a huge loss. Also unless your in your 70s to 90s your going to watch them again, i have watched most of my dvds at least 3 to 4 times.

i work at a video store and renting a movie 3 to 4 times is 20 bucks, on top of that i dont have cable so i save 40 to 100 bucks a month so just there im saving money and adding to something i can share with others for years to come. im only in my late 20s so i know i will watch all of my dvds (even the horrible ones like Elmo's Potty time) a few more times before i die. saveing even more money. the room it takes up is one wall out of 14 walls in my tiny two bedroom apt, so little room.

Also for those of you thinking about what movie to watch my wife and i just started this new thing where we pick a letter out of a hat and then watch every movie that begins with that letter over the course of forever. just did the z's and took a week because i have 5 z movies and now on H's and its been like a month but we are half way through and i cant belive some of the great movies i just hadnt watched in years. its also nice because my wife hasnt seen most of these so seeing her reactions are awsome and comparing remakes to new movies after shes sees them both for the first time priceless.

With that said to each his own, my opinion is deffinitly not right for everyone and to those of you who want to sell go for it and i hope you get a lot for them. and maybe ill even buy some if they are cheap enough : )

Marvin Dorfler

My collection, both regular DVD & BD has now amassed to I think 1038 and I wanted to sell off about 200. And then I spoke to my Dad back home and he surprisingly said, "I would rather you not do that." Obviously being an adult, he doesn't have much choice in the matter but I mean come on, its my Pops! And he told me the story that I have heard 1000 times about when he was a kid in Brooklyn and he had thousands of baseball cards (Mantle Rookie Cards, Mays Rookie Cards, Aaron Rookie, etc etc) and his mother basically said, "its either you or the cards!" And at 16 he had to bring his most prized possessions down to the incinerator room and watch it all burn. Stuff that had he sold them at their peak value in the mid-late 80's boom could have put me through college; well he shudders at the thought. So he gave his whole schpiel about how each movie or TV show I owned I bought for a reason, whatever it was. And even if I bought the movie blind, you can't take away the excitement of waiting for a movie to come to "Home Video," buy it (b/c you were not a renter b/c you never returned anything on time) and either liked it or disliked it. But to then sell it back for $2 after I just paid $15 and change after just a month of being released--I thought to myself, "I'll learn to like it." Or, "I will give it to so and so."

Basically (and I am seriously not trying to piss on anyone's parade here) what I am saying here is that I am not hearing any real monetary figures. No averages of what you think your 500 DVD's cost you and then averages of how much you got in back in real dollars. (And I suck at math so I would never dream of taking inflation or any of that malarkey into account) Also, God knows I need the space. Walking around my loft is like the opening scene of RAIDERS where Indy cannot step on the muddy oblong things.

I guess no one put any prices down of what they received in return b/c there is no doubt in my mind that some haters would be like, "thats all you got back for 500 DVDs?" But I say to each his own. Like oldchuckles said above, I am taking them all to my grave (or at least leaving them to family!) b/c I know for one reason or another on whatever day it was (except on a Tuesday when I knew what I was looking for) there was a reason, a memory, a song from the soundtrack--something that made me pick up that DVD that reminded me of something really good, bad or otherwise that made me me. It may sound really cheesy but these movies and TV shows are kind of what people identify you with. I have had people at work say, "You ever see this guys DVD collection? Yo, send him the link!" Then 5 minutes later 2 new people I never met are asking if they can borrow movies and I am making some new work pals (its a new job). Plus I cannot tell you how many fun DVD hunts I have had looking for an elusive DVD where there was only one store that had one WS copy that was 30 minutes away where I said, "F*** IT, I've come this far!" I wouldn't give those ridiculous experiences up for anything! But like I said, you do what you gotta do and whatever is best for you. The only person you ever have to explain anything you do is to yourself...unless you're married.

All the best,

--Dorfler

http://batkruse.dvdaf.com/

GenPion

I almost always tend to make profit when I sell DVD's because I always get good deals. The only ones that were maybe a bit more pricey are ones that I definitely knew I wanted.

Anyway, my point is -- if your like me and own a lot of blind buys that are eating up your time and you can sell them for a profit then go for it. Otherwise, it probably isn't really worth it.

islandclaws

I wish I had the power to do this, but I just can't justify getting back pennies on the dollar for a title I bought. I've got around 2700+ DVDs/BDs right now and even though I haven't even been able to watch them all, I just couldn't see myself getting rid of many of them.

Regulus

I'm keeping mine until I "Assume Room Temperature", at which point they will be going to my Family!

slop101

I need to do this soon. I've cut down on buying stuff quite a bit, but I really need to pare down my 1,200 or so dvds down to about 600.

It would just take a lot of time to do - and my plate's already full.