Good day!
My name is Theradin and I've been recently started collecting Laserdisc movies.
I came upon my current laserdisc player (Toshiba XR-K68) yesterday through a garage sale. I paid $5 for the machine and came with:
- Star Trek VI: Undiscovered Country
- Batman & Robin
- Sibling Rivalry
- Spice Girls
- Michael Jackson: Greatest Video Hits
- Lionel Richie: Back to Front

I recently went out and purchased a few more laserdiscs today. Those being:
- Titanic
- True Lies
- Jurassic Park
- The King and I
- Stargate
- The Ten Commandments

I tried asking around as to which movies would be good for collecting but only received questioning and ridicule over something that apparently sucks..
I enjoy the thing. I plan to collect a lot more

well, this is a long hard question to answer.
it will all depend on what type of things you like.
if you want certain films for audio or video.
do you want films that may not be on DVD or any other format.
do you want to collect music only LDs, or anime, or monster/Horror films.
do you care about the aspect ratio of films, would you rather have an open matte or do you care if it's
cropped as a 1.85

if you plan to collect more you have to figure out some of these issues.

if you just want to collect Hollywood blockbusters that you can still buy like Titanic
then you may not want to waste your time.

not that it's bad to have those but you can get great copies on other formats.
also don't pay anything for T2, Speed or other films that Everybody bought.
you can usually find them CHEAP

I'm looking for some of the more harder to find movies, those including the ones not released on DVD
Music doesn't really interest me at all and whatever other little details don't really matter
I'm mostly into action movies but anything really work for me

I'm just wanting to make a good collection, be it if they are movies that people commonly have or not
Shame you say that movies like T2 and Speed are movies to avoid since most people already have them :p
Was planning on getting those ones as well. though I guess it makes more sense to grab the movies that are more rare for a dead format rather than super common ones..

Currently I'm searching for the Star Wars trilogy in box

don't avoid them, it's just that everybody has one, or 20
if you like LD and like that movie then get it.
but make sure you don't pay more than a few bucks, and if you are starting out and do pickup
lots of discs there is a 90% chance that there will be a copy of that title.

i remember a story about a LD seller who had so many copies of T2 that he could wall paper his entire house with just the discs.

so just don't pay 10 or 50 bucks for something like that.

and that's what i have, a good collection of both types of films, but you can learn since you are
new to it.

Jurassic Park is another title that tends to be very common. Most LD collectors would not pay money for that title as it tends to be included in almost every batch of films that appears on Ebay or free with a player etc.

It is a fun format to collect though so welcome to the forum.

I guess the next thing to tackle for me is to know when a laserdisc is priced right
How do I know which laserdisc movies are actually the amount people are selling it for or if the laserdisc is too overpriced or unreasonable?
I'm gonna guess that the movies that are most common shouldn't be worth any more than $5 or so

ah, that's where research comes in.
you will have to look first then buy, or just buy first and make sellers some extra money

it takes many years to know what is a good price, i've been in different markets for some time now
and still don't really know what a good price is.

it all depends on how much you really want something and if you can wait, OR if you wait
and you never find it again

Bit of an update
I managed to find out where some laserdiscs are being sold
It just so happens the video game store I frequent had a whole stash of laserdisc movies that were bought from an old-time enthusiast
I found quite a few interesting movies from there as well as some of the deluxe box sets like Toy Story, Lion King and Schindler's List, just to name a few.

There a few Criterion Collection movies I saw there as well
I thought that the pile of laserdisc movies I saw where all that there was but apparently there are loads more that the owner will dig out for me sometime this week for me to check out. I'm eager to find out what else there is

sounds like a good score, how do you like LD so far?

Loving it. Might potentially be a money draining hobby but collecting something like this is pretty fun. Watching the movies is also excellent. Quality might not be the absolute best but there is something about LD's that I really enjoy. I would like to pick up a better laserdisc player though. My current one has no remot, no fast forward or rewind feature and it seems like the search buttons don't work anymore.. It's pretty annoying having to watch and entire side of a disc again in order to get back to a certain part

no, if you compare it now to BD it may not be the best.
but i always thought it was about 5-10% less than DVD around 2004.
so I never had a reason to sell all my discs and buy them again etc.

Hello theradin,

Welcome to this great collecting hobby! The advice offered here by rein-o is very sound indeed. The advice I would add to this is, if you see a title you are interested in, look it up here on this site. On the dedicated page for each title, you will find some very valuable information. You will be able to see how many copies are registered in the collections here. If you see that there are only 1 or 2 copies that people have registered in their collections, it is a pretty good bet that the title is fairly rare. Also, you can see how many users here have the title on their wishlists. If there are many more on wishlists than in collections, it is also a good indication that the title is probably rare. Lastly, you will be able to see the sales history for the title on this database. You can see how many copies, if any, have been sold here, and the price range for which they were sold. All of this is very useful in helping to determine whether a given title might be rare, and to get some idea of what it might be worth. Good luck in your quest! I hope you will enjoy collecting these beautiful discs as much as I have for the past 25 years! However, be aware that this hobby can be highly addictive! If you are not careful, you may end up with a collection like mine in a few years! It's great to have you here with us!

Regards,
David

Actually just leave a note and we can let you know quickly if you have a question on a title. Most of the titles you mentioned could be gotten cheaply. There are DTS versions of the movies that are a whole lot more then the regular versions and it comes down to sound. Another easy way of doing it is just pluggin the title in and see what comes up. Even then though you never know.

http://www.lddb.com/laserdisc/shop/9269/

I dont know if that is a rare title or not as I have the only one for sale on here or ebay.

Another way to tell, check this out.
http://www.lddb.com/top100.php?id=4

When they are priced up around $30.00 or under as that translates cheap to me £.

Trog on LaserDisc is rare, as only a small pre-order was pressed, but not valuable as most people don't want it and it's on DVD for like 5 bucks in a VASTLY superior looking anamorphic version.

Got myself 2 laser discs from the store I mentioned earlier
Took a quick snapshot

The discs and the stuff that came with it is pretty much untouched and new
There was no plastic on it but everything inside looks like it hasn't been used at all