What did you do with your cassette tapes?

I started buying cassettes in the early 80s. I got rid of some of my cassettes in the early/mid 90s (not many, kept my Pink Floyd, The Door's etc.) but continued to buy them in the cutout bins from time to time if I found something rare or unavailable on CD. When I bought the CD I would get rid of the cassette if it was a common release but towards the end of the 90s I started buying them more often again at thrift stores, Goodwill etc. and in the cutout bins from music/department stores. I found some good ones over the years, and some rare as well. The ones from the 70s are my favorites as well as the 80s Rhino cassettes. I hardly have found any in recent years due to the resurgence of interest in cassettes.

 

Still have 150 cassettes, some personal of family recordings from early 1960's the rest are music taped from vinyl, and mix of 25 store bought tapes, and cassingles (remember those!)

 

I threw mine out of the car window at various stop lights and signs. They could be seen with the tape flailing in the breeze as you waited for the light to turn green as you lost yourself in random thoughts to the flicker of the emptying spool.

 

I kept them well-organized and handy for playing in my pickup truck and in the Onkyo Integra TA-6711 deck in my system, and still do. Nothing like returning to a well-loved cassette compilation again and again over the years.

I’ll alway love my cassettes for the habit I had of taping my LPs as soon as I bought them and using the tapes as the main way to listen, which kept my vinyl in more or less near mint condition until I finally bought a hi-fi turntable and a luscious cartridge later on.

 

I kept em because they meant a lot to me, they were my main source for listening to music, and judging by the times it totally fit, young in the early 80's and a very mobile kid so portable music was "it" walkman, boombox, at home, bringing to someones house, then of course those great late teenage years in cars and when you got your own car. It was all about the portability, not many people I knew were home bodies then and I most certainly was on the go, at first on foot and bike then car and always had music with me, always!
So at some point they got put away but in a house in a closet so good climate, then one day I take em out and wow the great titles, memories, rare, odd, some hard to impossible to find anywhere nowadays, all the ones that sounded good then still sound good now and I play them on a quality deck in my system, and my 02 truck has a cd and cassette deck stock, I can't believe how good sound in some cases!
I was glad I kept them and including some of the titles I bought (in early part of the century) for 50 cents to $1 I have about 400. I dig em and I play them, as well as my lp's and cd's in which I have in the k's compared in numbers. Good stuff, the memories the music, where I was, what doing, where I got em at places long gone, a lot of time traveled. Very glad I kept them and they didn't get thrown away or lost.

 

The cassettes lived in the car, so over time all the cases broke and the tapes became too dirty to play, so after we mothballed our last car with a cassette player, into the garbage they went.

 

Playing them in the 2003 Suburban because the CD player stopped working. It's kinda fun to play the old tapes and let the memories float back in.

 

made a dress

 

Back in 86-89 tapes were sounded amazing (at the time/for the time and our age) in car stereos.. kenwood, sony,pioneer, pioneer 3 way 6x9 speakers, I wasn't the only one who had, it was like stereos in cars were crazy good sounding, especially compared to what us youngsters (teens) had at homes, tho we had some dcent and good for the times home systems too, if ya'll remember Circuit City and the Good Guys, so we were not strangers to good decent sound and had records too! Still tapes like Back in Black and Fair Warning and Piece of Mind, Appetite, No Sleep till Hammersmith, .... I could go on and on, them car stereos of that time with good tapes was great sound and made for great driving back then

 

I would think, climate and location (living) could've played a role in some peoples tapes early demise and degeneration process, it is tape.

 

Sold most of them around 1990. I still have a small box with a few cassettes and some of my old mixtapes.

 

Nothing.
Still got them (all homemade mixtapes on premium cassettes), in the same Case Logic nylon cases.

 

Sold them off at used stores long, long ago when they still commanded some sort of value. I kept a few of my Simple Minds cassettes simply for sentimental value, since they are my favorite band.

 

They got junked as I upgraded technology. I probably tossed 100 or more tapes but still have maybe 30-40 tapes left, mostly ones I purchased and ones I made as a kid/teenager. As the years went on I listened to them less and less in favor of CDs but still I occasionally used tapes for mixes. I think the last mix tape I made was in 1995 when I recorded songs from TV that I couldn't find on CD, like the theme from Cowboy Bebop. After I had a computer that could burn CDs, cassettes were over with. My last cassette player broke and went into the dumpster in 2003 or so. Cassettes had a good run though and some of those high quality tapes from about 1986 onwards ("chromium oxide" or whatever) were amazingly great quality. I had a high quality cassette copy of Peter Gabriel's So that sounded just incredible on my friend's car stereo. Wish I still had it.

 

Sold a bunch of them this year.

Most of them were high quality metal and CrO2 blanks with stuff from CD and vinyl recorded on them. Sold them as blanks.

Still have 25 -30 tapes recorded off the radio from the mid 70's (with some commercials and DJ patter etc.) that I've cataloged and plan on keeping.

 

10 years ago, sold to the highest bidder at 50cents a box of tapes.

 

I have mine stored in boxes that I will probably drag around with me and keep in closets for the rest of my life.

 

One thing for sure, I´m not throwing away any of these,

 

Tossed the homemade ones, tried to sell the factory made ones here in the classifieds, got nary a response, took them to Goodwill. Done.

 

Exactly the same for me. Did the same with VHS tapes too. No one wanted them. No value at all. Gave me a release too.

 

Still have quite a few and a Nak set up to play them though I rarely do. The ones I was most sure to keep were concerts I recorded myself.

 

Occasionally, I will play one.

 

We had a neighborhood yard sale recently, and I had boxes of both cassettes and VHS tapes out there. Not one single tape of any kind sold. Not. One. Off to Goodwill they all went.

 

There are exceptions. A UK copy of From Genesis to Revelation sold recently for £51. An 8 Track of the same album for £133!
Bill Nelson's Alter Pieces often sold for £50 although that is now available as a download so not sure how that affected price.
Most though are pretty worthless. The resurgence in bands issuing tapes is perplexing. The Innocence Mission have just released a new EP in the format. I can't imagine them selling many of those but hey, they may know different.