The prices I've see for early 80s Japanese LDs weren't any cheaper than LDs from the late 90s. The yen however more than doubled in strength in that time though which raised the American street prices more than a little. I'd be importing a lot of stuff now if it was still 240yen to the dollar. Now is more like 85.

That's what I meant, the american prices for Japanese import discs were low - about as low as actual US releases. It wasn't expensive to collect Japaneese discs, unlike the situation after 1985 or so when the Yen got stronger and Japanese import titles that cost $35 now cost $80.

Towards the end of laserdisc production some of the Japanese releases were fairly unimpressive in terms of the jacket quality.
Titles like 'Ever After' and 'Mission: Impossible 2' seemed rushed, like no one cared anymore as the jackets are just flimsy US grade single jackets instead
of the more typical reinforced gatefold jackets that one had come to expect from Japan.

Of course this just means getting hold of truly mint copies of these final releases is that little bit harder if you are a collector as there will be quite a few examples
out there that don't make the grade. So expect to pay a premium for items like this in pristine condition since there will be very few genuinely mint copies in circulation.

Good day laserdisc_fan,

I totally agree with what you mentioned about the MI-2 Laserdisc cover, I also thought that this could have been presented with the good quality gatefold covers that I had come to expect from a good number of my Japanese imported LD's.

And yes I am one of those people that will and have been willing to pay a premium for the top quality, or new Laserdisc's that can still be had and found.

I currently have a 2nd MI-2 reserved with a seller, so hopefully this will be paid for along with 24 other titles sometime during 2013.

I am glad to say that I am looking forward to completing these purchases, as this has taken a loooong time.

Regards to you

Well, you also have to remember that back in 80s and early 90s the Yen-to-Dollar exchange rate wasn't as bad as it is now. For the longest time, it was ~300 yen to the dollar. Around 1992, did the exchange rate start to go in the tank--below 100 yen to the dollar.

Makes those 7800+ yen LDs not so expensive now, hmmm?

The worst LaserDisc jacket I've ever seen is the jacket for the US AC-3 release of Alien. It's made of thin, cheap and flimsy paper, almost like the low-cost 12-inch single albums used to come in. I've never seen a LaserDisc jacket so cheaply made. Yet the Aliens AC-3 jacket is a fine gatefold.

Many of the later Pioneer UK PAL releases actually had the same grade of jacket as Japanese releases. These were some of the first LDs I owned as I got them free with the players I was buying at the time. Tiles like Scream, Scream 2, Titanc etc. I focused mainly on Japanese music titles for several years. When I started buying US releases I was really unimpressed by the jacket quality and also the general condition of most used jackets. I don't actually attribute the poor condition of jackets to the lower manufacturing quality because I was able to source near mint copies of the same US jackets from other countries like Hong Kong and Japan where private collectors tended to look after their covers more carefully. This was however a more expensive way of buying a US title as they were effectively imports into those countries and marked up accordingly. It has however enabled me to obtain pristine copies of many US covers that simply don't turn up in the US at any price.