Rare discs you own?

Here are a few of mine from what I havnt seen for sale or are quite expensive

Angel 4: Undercover
Blade
WarGames
The Wrong Box
Ferris Bueller's Day Off
Fight Club
Four Rooms
Gremlins 1+2
Platoon Boxset
Pump up the Volume
Scandal (REALLY WANT TO GET ANOTHER COPY AS THIS ONE IS DAMAGED)
Starwars Episode 1
Starwars Definitive Collection
The Matrix
The Thomas Crown Affair (1999)
Wierd Science
Who Framed Roger Rabbit (Recalled version with a bit of an extra view of Jessica)

SnR

I have Brian De Palma's (1973) Sisters laserdisc , I quite liked this film and it seems to be quite rare. Brian De Palma has directed some great films Scarface , Carrie , The untouchables , Carlitos Way to name a few and he is now working PASSION on a remake of the French Crime d'amour due for release in 2012.

The only rare one I currently have is The Matrix (US version).

Amongst my really rare stuff I count those movies that haven't yet made it to DVD. These include:
Vincent Price in DIARY OF A MADMAN and also in MASTER OF THE WORLD,
Ray Milland in THE UNINVITED,
& Peter Lorre in THE BEAST WITH FIVE FINGERS

Other rare LDs in my collection (I haven't seen them on offer anywhere else) include:
POPEYE CLASSICS
DEATH MACHINE
DONOVAN'S BRAIN
THE BUTCHER BOY
HAPPY HARMONIES (Harmon-Ising cartoons boxed set)
THE UNNAMABLE
THE WALKING DEAD (Karloff)
YELLOW SUBMARINE (Restored 1999 edition)
THE X FROM OUTER SPACE/YONGARY, MONSTER FROM THE DEEP (Korean monster double bill)
THE GUARDIAN (Friedkin horror pic)
and loads of obscure stuff that hardly anyone's heard of!

Some of my more or less rare LD's.

Standard/Gatefold:

Fight Club
Star Wars Episode 1
The Seventh Seal (CAV, Criterion)
Akira (CAV, Criterion)
Daughters Of Darkness
Mononoke-Hime
Blade Runner (CAV, Criterion, not rare but high on many wishlists)
The Birth Of A Nation
The General
Duel To The Death
Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind (really early letterboxed release)
Fear And Loathing In Las Vegas

As well as some instruction-videos for Street Fighter II and Fatal Fury Special.

Box Sets:

Pulp Fiction (Criterion)
2001: A Space Odyssey (Criterion)
Seven Samurai (Criterion)
The Golden Age Of Looney Tunes: Vol. 1
Scarface (Signature Collection)
Jaws (Signature Collection)
12 Monkeys (Signature Collection)
The Beatles: Anthology
Neon Genesis Evangelion: Movie box set (believe me, it's the ULTIMATE box set)
The Godfather Trilogy: 1901-1980

And probably some more, but these are the titles I come to think about right now. Here's my collection.
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I think The Matrix is there rarest disc I own.

Just out of interest does anyone know how many copies of the Matrix were made?

I've heard that they only made enough to fill the pre-orders, which doesn't sound much and it is the no.1 in lddb's wishlist, but it seems to feature in most collections so is it really all that rare?

I have no insider information but I once read that a laserdisc would have to be pressed in a minimum quantity of 500 to be viable commercially. Clearly that's a very low number compared to the basic pressing runs for DVDs, but I've often thought, with some of the more obscure or specialist titles, that they'd be lucky to sell even half that number. Just looking at the discs beginning with 'A' in my own LD collection, exactly how many copies could have been sold of Abel Ferrara's THE ADDICTION, Atom Egoyan's THE ADJUSTER, Mark Peploe's AFRAID OF THE DARK, Jon Jost's ALL THE VERMEERS IN NEW YORK, Martin Donovan's APARTMENT ZERO (even though it has Colin Firth in it!) and Louis Malle's AU REVOIR LES ENFANTS?

None of the above were what you'd call mainstream commercial hits, most have hardly been heard of beyond movie-buff circles, yet they were issued as laserdiscs and sit there on my shelf between AIRPLANE, the ALIEN trilogy, APOCALYPSE NOW, ARMAGEDDON and APOLLO 13 and loads more starting with A that were more obvious sellers. I have many more like that and sometimes wonder if I own the only copy sold of some the more esoteric titles. Only the other night, I watched a wonderful movie on LD called THE WINTER GUEST with Emma Thompson (I mean she was in it, I didn't watch it with her!) but, although it was a fantastic piece, I can't imagine more than half a dozen people would ever have bought it on laserdisc.

So how rare is rare? Some companies, such as the Dutch outfit EC Entertainment, would add a level of collectability to LDs by individually numbering their releases, such as with the Lucio Fulci Collection, but this doesn't mean they were pressed in smaller quantities. (Some current vinyl LPs are produced with the same thinking - stick a number on it and the disc becomes "unique", therefore twice the price.) Clearly, the prices of the titles on offer in the Dinodisc store reflect, to some extent, their rarity value - but if there were, as I believe, at least 500 copies struck of each title, what's happened to them all?

As for THE MATRIX, I've no idea how many were pressed, but it was fairly easy to get hold of at the time of release and there was plenty of promotion. With the movie doing so well in cinemas at the time, I imagine this was a fairly successful seller.

Incidentally, have you ever noticed how many eBay sellers describe their items as "rare" - then you see about 20 other copies of the same thing being offered by other sellers!

Matrix was one of the latter laserdisc releases 21/09/1999 and at that time laserdisc was coming to an end with dvds becoming more popular. I suppose at that time they knew that the vast majority of sales would be dvd so no doubt would have produced far less laserdiscs. I would say that there are still quite a few but in peoples collections and being such a popular film thats were the vast majority will stay. I have just listed armageddon criterion 16/03/99 which was also released in very limited quantitys again due to the popularity of dvds and the slowing laserdisc sales. I would love to know how many of some of the latter releases were produced but I havent been able to find any figures. Then you have the limited edition laserdiscs like house by the cemetery ltd to 750 / city of the living dead ltd to 750 / house on the edge of the park ltd to 500 / twins of evil ltd to 500 and this was before the slowdown in laserdisc sales so these at the time would most likely have had a higher retail price. If they could release films then limited to as little as 500 and find that it was profitable then i truly believe if they now released some of the best films from 2000 - present day they would sell very quickly. If only laserdisc could have the same revival as vinyl , Im sure some films would sell out very quick in limited quantitys - Finding nemo , star wars ,attack of the clones/ revenge of the sith to name just a few. Its unlikley that this will ever happen but I wouldnt be too shocked if there was a 2012 laser disc release or am I just dreaming .

I live just down the road (10 miles ish) from where a lot of the PAL discs were made. If you look at some PAL discs they were made in Bromsgrove (South/West Birmingham) and have an 0121 phone number. I have always wondered what happened to the pressing plant.

I have half wondered what it would cost to do limited runs of discs and also if it was possible to have simple blanks made that use the same dye technology as CD's, this would allow blanks to be produced in bulk and then record the data afterwards as opposed to being pressed from a master.

I know there were some recordable laserdiscs but they were only CAV.

I wonder how much it would cost to get the rights to reproduce a film in a limited qty.

SnR

Recordable laserdiscs, I never knew you could get them.

I think now with Blu Ray on the market we'll never see any new laserdisc pressings unfortunately.

If you were to press any new discs I think possibly the hardest part would be to get an analogue source.

there were recently some blanks on eBay US site.

I know they went for about $100 each though.

I have also seen a recorder on ebay for about £2000 about 6 months ago

Judging by recent comments within the laserdisc community (the what?) I guess one of my rarest discs must be THE KEEP. It's a great and quirky movie which Empire magazine went so far as to call one of the 50 greatest horror movies of all time. Yet, strangely, when it - both the film (1983) and the laserdisc (1993) - came out, it was greeted with stark indifference.

It's an unusual movie, admittedly, to come from Michael Mann, nothing like his other mainstream work (MANHUNTER, HEAT, THE INSIDER, etc.) but it has its moments. The story goes that it was originally much longer than its current 96 minutes, but Paramount, in the meddling way so typical of major studios, could make neither head nor tail of it and cut it down. Mann was furious, disowned the whole thing, and that was it.

I gather that a lot of interest in THE KEEP has been generated since, partly by the rarity of it in any video format (it was out briefly on VHS and copies now trade for significant sums even though it's cropped from its original widescreen) and also by Tangerine Dream fans who want to hear the soundtrack music. Even the soundtrack CD is rare - there's currently one copy on Amazon for £180! (There's a Limited Edition CD too, but that's only £100.)

The laserdisc from Paramount (LV 1563) is fully widescreen (so you can see Rik Mayall as a non-speaking Nazi soldier in one scene - he's cropped out in the video) and is a superb transfer. It hardly ever appears in dealer's lists although one copy was on offer recently thru Amazon Marketplace. The seller was asking silly money but he obviously got it, 'cos it's gone now.

I think the rarest one I have (based on the fact I have never seen one before or since) is Ren & Stimpy cartoon classics,
Great sleeve and contains the very first few episodes - its a treasure

My rarest one is Visiting Hours which is an 1983 pressing(CBS/FOX video) and with Mono sound
followed by Empire Records(Japanese Version i`ve not seen it for sale anywhere)
And maybe Saving Private Ryan because it is the Japanese version.

Wow

Empire Records

Now that's a film I would love to get my hands on!

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While we're talking about hen's teeth, possibly one of my rarest laserdiscs is HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS.

It was directed by Pete Walker in 1983 and came out on VHS and laserdisc that same year from Guild Home Video. It's one of my earliest discs yet it performs very well, great picture and sound. I even made my own DVD-R from it because, even though most of Pete Walker's other films have been released on DVD, most notably in Anchor Bay's 'coffin box', HOUSE OF THE LONG SHADOWS simply seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth.

It's hard to understand why it's such a 'lost' film as it stars Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee, Vincent Price AND John Carradine! What a line up that was. Cushing, Lee and Price had hardly every been in the same film. I think they were all in SCREAM AND SCREAM AGAIN but didn't necessarily share scenes. Here, they're all together and camping it up like fury. It's a sort of comedy-spooky film so it was probably not funny enough for those who wanted an outright comedy and not spooky enough for a chiller, but it does have its moments.

My favourite bit is when Vincent Price first appears, entering in the dark through the front door to dramatic music and claps of thunder, to announce: "I have arrived!" Peter Cushing, under his breath, mutters: "Oh, Lord...!" It's priceless. Well, actually it's Price-ful!

The laserdisc is full frame and plays for 97 mins. Obviously, it's mono and no extras, but this was 1983. They didn't do such things then.

the only rare one i have or rare to me at least is a film called hunters blood saw it on vhs years ago but never got put on dvd because no one can seem to get the rights to it

mc211177 wrote:

My rarest one is Visiting Hours which is an 1983 pressing(CBS/FOX video) and with Mono sound
followed by Empire Records(Japanese Version i`ve not seen it for sale anywhere)
And maybe Saving Private Ryan because it is the Japanese version.

Wow, I'd hang on to your VISITING HOURS LD, if I were you. That disc was obviously released before the film got on to the notorious DPP list of "video nasties" (although it was dropped after only for 2 months) so that makes it extra-collectible. I don't suppose you know whether it was cut for home video, do you? It was definitely cut for the UK cinema release in '84 and also for the VHS release two years later, but I'm assuming yours is an NTSC edition, so maybe it's the complete uncut version.

Great to think that William Shatner was actually in a "video nasty" (but then he was also in THE DEVIL'S RAIN which was just as bad - an atrocious movie!)

Probably the rarest title I have owned was The World is Not Enough, but I sold it last year on Ebay (now regret).
Also owned The Keep Widescreen (also sold on Ebay- also regret)

My rare-ish titles i own now are probably:

The Matrix (came in a lucky dip box of 50 discs for $50)
Fight Club
The Siege (Jap release)
The Haunting (owen wilson one)
Star Wars Ep 1 (actually 3 copies)
A Bug's Life
Lethal Weapon Director's Cut Set
DTS Experience
THX WOW
T-2 Squeeze (non Thx)
Basic Instinct Squeeze