Used DVD's: A Guide to What's Valuable and What's Not

Remember when you brought home that first movie or TV show on DVD? The miracle of all that content packed on to a tiny disc. The colorful packaging. The low price. You couldn't wait to watch it. Once. Or maybe twice. Then you bought a different DVD. Then a few more. Soon, the rack next to your TV was overflowing with plastic cases.

If you've visited any garage sales, second hand shops or flea markets recently, you've discovered that you weren't alone. Everywhere you look, there are now used DVD's for sale. Prices range from a dollar for common titles to a hundred dollars or more for collector's titles.

So you've decided to thin out that overflowing collection of yours. But how do you know if you should just sell them for a dollar, of if you've got something that might actually be worth more than you paid for it? Or perhaps you visit many garage sales and second hand stores and are interested in making a few dollars by finding and reselling titles others have discarded?

There are many DVD titles that are now worth more--sometimes much more--than what was paid for them when they were released.

Like any market, it's all supply and demand. Many Disney titles have been produced by the hundreds of thousands, for example. But because there is still a big demand for Disney, many titles can easily be resold. And even though that copy of "How To Train You Cat To Clean The Garage" was produced in very limited quantity, is there anybody else that really cares?

Here are some general guidelines for selling your used DVDs.

New, recently-released DVD's are going to be the easiest to sell, because there is a lot of people still looking for them. But as more and more copies of a particular DVD are released, the resale market will get smaller and smaller. So the longer you hang on to a title produced in ever-larger quantities, the less you'll get for it. If you don't think you'll be watching a particular DVD again any time soon, it's probably best to sell it now rather than later.