Home › Forums › Buying and Selling › Selling on eBay › Selling vintage 8 mm home movies
- This topic has 16 replies, 11 voices, and was last updated 1 year, 10 months ago by
almasty.
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08/22/2018 at 9:29 am #47848
I picked up 4 cans of 8mm home movies from an estate sale. They intrigued me because they were marked “Racing ’65” “Tahiti” and Fname Lname ’71 and ’72 and they were cheap. Does anyone have an easy/cheap way of getting images from the film to post on eBay? Thanks, Daniel
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08/22/2018 at 9:41 am #47849
Before you take that route, a bit of advice for you…
A few years ago I bought an old Kodak projector in the box from an estate sale. When I got home I discovered that it wasn’t a projector, but 8mm reels of home movies. I contacted the estate sale company to see if the family wanted the reels, they did not. So for kicks I threw them up on eBay in lots of 4 reels each. I just described what each reel had labeled and they all were from the 60’s and 70’s. They all were purchased by different production companies in California. I made about $400 for the reels. Apparently they are in demand with movie producers.
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08/22/2018 at 10:33 am #47851
Thanks AtomicStar. I was thinking of going this route as well. I was hoping I could check the contents of the film and post some tasty stills of race cars, tahitian beaches and etc to draw attention.
BTW, in case anyone is following this thread in future, here is a handy guide to questions about 8mm & Super-8 and etc. Thanks, Daniel.
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08/22/2018 at 7:05 pm #47870
Buy a 8mm viewer: https://www.ebay.com/b/Movie-Viewers/4790/bn_157579
(Note to anyone: 8mm and Super 8 are totally different and need different equipment)Then you can snap photos from the viewer. Thats what we do. It’s simple and easy.
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08/22/2018 at 10:34 am #47852
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08/22/2018 at 4:04 pm #47862
I’m always intrigued at the idea that folks sell their old home movies. I’ve bought several old camcorders with tapes in them and always wait with baited breath to see what’s on them.
Off the top of my head:
1. A guy who filmed a hot air balloon festival launch.
2. A family who recorded a lot of video of their dogs.
3. A teenager who filmed himself talking while bored and taping music videos off the tv. (this one was hilarious!)-
08/22/2018 at 4:44 pm #47864
I too struggle with why people would sell/donate this kind of item.
I always enjoy buying old phone answering machines – sometimes the messages are hilarious and give you insight into someone else’s life. I had a machine with a tape in it once for a guy that constantly missed work to go drinking with his buddies (his buddy would call and leave a message about going to a bar/club, then his boss would call house later looking for him). The same tape had an irate ex (baby mama) looking for the guy to pick-up the kids. There was the odd “sexy voiced” female leaving messages as well. Nothing graphic, but still funny.
I’m also very scared to look at computers and other electronic devices I buy…usually I find a lot of personal documents and family/appropriate photos, but have heard stories of people finding adult material and illegal/disgusting photos and videos on items they bought at thrift stores and had to contact the police.
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08/24/2018 at 4:18 am #47900
I sold a box of negatives yesterday to a gentleman whose father took the photographs. To confirm that it was his father, I emailed a scan of a schoolboy standing outside his classroom. The photograph was taken over one hundred years ago, in about 1910!
They’re mostly glass plates dating from the 1900s up to the 1920s. If the photographer hadn’t written his name on one of the boxes, and gone on to become an author, writing about his experiences in WW1 (and hence got his own Wikipedia article) I would never have identified him.
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08/24/2018 at 6:43 am #47902
Dont leave us hanging: how much did you get?
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08/24/2018 at 9:16 am #47903
I let him name his own price, which turned out to be £100 plus petrol for the delivery plus an overnight stay in the New Forest (in a house, not in a tree!) One of these items where there’s a kind of moral obligation to only sell it to one customer!
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08/25/2018 at 10:20 pm #47967
I found a box of about 10 porno 8mm movies from the 1950s at an estate sale. The titles (hand-written in marker) were all semi-risque sounding names (such as “Strip Poker”). I looked at the reels under a light to confirm the contents. I sold the lot for $100 pretty quickly. Pretty sure I should have marked the price much higher.
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08/26/2018 at 7:16 am #47972
There’s a junk market near me where the stuff for sale comes from house clearances. I picked up a fancy wooden box once that was next to a pile of adult magazines. Then I read the nameplate on the box, and realised there was someone in it. I put ‘im back. Presumably he’d been in a cupboard on top of the mags.
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11/09/2019 at 5:33 pm #70392
They all were purchased by different production companies in California. I made about $400 for the reels. Apparently they are in demand with movie producers.
Has this been anyone else’s experience? I’m looking into the roots of this market – why are people buying up other people’s home movies? Is it really all from production companies? What are they doing with the footage?
If anyone has any more info please get in touch!
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11/09/2019 at 7:09 pm #70395
I think they probably use it for “stock footage”. There is a load of companies online that sell stock footage that people use for films and even youtube videos.
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11/09/2019 at 10:01 pm #70401
Yep:
https://www.shutterstock.com/video/search/old-home-moviesThey buy from you, digitize, and make money forever.
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11/10/2019 at 8:09 am #70404
I’ve sold 8mm films many times. I get the most money out of them buy transferring a few clips to video and including them in the listing.
By transferring I mean I use my iPhone to capture the clips while I watch the movies on a screen.
Pick up a used projector, they can be found on the cheap if you look hard enough. -
11/10/2019 at 8:27 am #70405
Watching film reels on 8 mm is really fun. Turn the lights off, find clear wall space and then just watch short films you can’t see on Amazon Prime/Hulu/Netflix. It’s really magical.
I got a barely used Brownie 300 Film Projector off Ebay a few years ago that works like a champ and takes up very little space. They are cheap little champs.
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