I found this recently uploaded commercial for an 80s mom and pop video store about their introduction of Laserdiscs to their store:

Greenfield Video - Laserdiscs

Definitely made me chuckle for several reasons (most obviously their cement like acting), but it got me wondering for those of us who were into Laserdiscs before the internet age, where did we get our Laserdiscs? Any local sources or were you mostly mail order?

I got my first LD player when I was stationed in Japan, so I had no shortage of places to get discs (though I usually went to Akihabara for used discs.) Plus, the military bases carried Laserdiscs (made sense since they sold the players!) Oddly enough, the base exchange with the biggest selection of LD movies was at the Air Force base on Okinawa!

When I got back home to NJ, right as DVDs were being introduced, my choices were better than I thought they'd be. Within a 15 mile radius, I had several places where to rent and buy LDs. Four rental stores had a sizeable collection for rent (and did I ever raid them when they decided to liquidate their Laserdiscs, once DVD caught on!)

One sort of local movie rental chain, Movies Unlimited, didn't rent Laserdiscs, but they did have them for sale. If you were a member, you got a 20% discount ordering movies from them which applied to Laserdiscs as well! Definitely took advantage of that. Their brick and mortar stores are gone, but they live on as an online store.

Another mom and pop rental store though (named "Hollywood Video" though they were not affiliated with the chain store at all) had a huge collection with a lot of fine titles (even the later titles like The Matrix and The Mummy.) The owner downsized at one point and took down all the Laserdiscs. I kept bugging him if he was planning on selling the collection. He wasn't sure what he wanted to do, but he took my name and number should he decide to sell them off. He never called me back though even after he finally closed up shop a few years ago.

There was also Suncoast Pictures in the malls, where a few of those carried LDs (I got several Image Entertainment coming atttractions catalogs from them), and two Tower Records locations which carried Laserdiscs (yep, I raided them too when they liquidated their Laserdiscs.)

Do you have any fond memories of Laserdisc shops near you?

I was stationed at Misawa Air Base in the mid 90's ... Japan was where I bought my first player also. I use to rent discs mostly from a local video store off base. The shop closed down about midway through my tour. The LD(s) I purchased were mainly from the Base Exchange and some mail order. 90% of my collection was attained in the last 3 years.

When the shop off base closed ... I remember renting strictly VHS tapes on base after that. Never liked the tape format ... it was just "there" for rent.

I was too young at the time Laserdiscs were on the scene, but I do remember going to my aunt's house in Mississauga, Ontario (RIght near Toronto) and going to rent movies with her at a Rogers Video (Currently the only chain left in Canada, although very scarce these days). They didn't have shelves of them though. If I remember correctly they had sort of a wire bin where they had maybe 50 movies you could flip through.

I grew up further into the suburbs and never saw Laserdiscs anywhere else. I do know from some of the discs my aunt gave me that she used to shop at a store called Laserland in Mississauga when she was buying discs (I still have her copy of Edward Scissorhands with it's insane 79.99 price tag on it! I also know from some of the movies I have gathered that there was a place in Hamilton (The closest big city) that sold and rented discs called Video Works.

These days though, I only have one pawn shop in town and they rarely if ever get discs in. I have found only 2 movies ever at thrift stores mixed in with their albums. Hamilton has nowhere that sells them that I have found as of yet. There is a chain called BMV in Toronto that is similar to Half Price Books in the States and they get discs in every once in a while, but it is cost prohibitive for me to go look very often.

I used to shop at the Tower store here for many LDs, I would trek in there every week to check out the latest releases, once dvd had taken over I didn't make as many visits was just not the same.
Now even the used outlets have quit carrying LDs.

The only places I've found that have a decent chance of carrying used LDs are record stores. I've found a few in random places including thrift stores but any place that specializes in used vinyl often has a small space devoted to Laserdiscs. There are 2 that I know about here in Orlando (1 with hundreds of titles) and at least 2 in Gainesville that I'm aware of.

theres a special nerd store in worcester mass called "that's entertainment" they always have a bunch of LD's but there always just the average everyday ones: sound of music, independence day, godfather...

Where I am it's very slim picking. I remember Sam The Record Man had a couple of the music ones for sale back in the 90's time, and we had a store called One Stop Video which had the obscure formats laserdisc and beta, but they closed shop maybe already 8 years ago. I wasn't into laserdisc yet and they probably sold off stuff too before they closed, most of them probably rentals though.

CED discs were easier to get here. For now the local Symphony club has a annual used music and book sale (from donations) and they had I think 6 LD on the sale last year. Hopefully this year they will have more.

There was a shop that was a laserdisc rental place right next to where I used to live. Had about 10k discs. Disappeared one day and never saw him again. That was painful. I remember Suncoast. I used to buy tons of discs there. That was fun. Now, it is mostly Ebay, Craigslist and wherever else I might find. Slim pickings at yard sales but you do find stuff. I just buy everything and anything I find.

I currently live in Hong Kong and frequently go to the market in Sham Shui Po to see which LDs are available. There's a little old lady who sells vinyl and LDs for $10 HK each (roughly 90p UK, $1.60 US). In the past I've bought Die Hard 3 DTS, Daylight DTS and Terminator 2 Squeeze LD from her amongst other rare discs. She sells crapper LDs too, but every now and then I strike gold!

Bah! You're killing me now! I was supposed to be sent by my current job to HK to support a new office, but that fell through. And I was planning on hitting Sham Shui Po (mostly because of the Golden Shopping Arcade there) among other places to search for Laserdiscs!

The only local retailer who sold Laserdisc's in my town only sold the PAL versions, and they only had about 50 approx titles tops.

about 97% of my Laserdisc's were US and Japanese imports, and the shops that sold these were up to 60 to 70 miles away, of which I drove with joy to purchase.

Happy times they were. . . . .it's sad I know but good simple fun.

That's a shame. To be honest, SSP is pretty hit or miss. Most of the LDs are in below average condition, and there are a lot of tatty ex-rentals. I must admit that my T2 Squeeze has two warped discs (something I need to try and fix!) and disc 2 has a crack in it. Still, it's pretty cool to own and view since I've ever seen a Squeeze LD in action before!

Are there still a lot of video shops in Mongkok? I remember going there on my last trip to HK and found a lot of Laserdiscs for cheap (of course that was back in 1997 right before the Handover.)

Back in the '90s I used to buy my laserdiscs at shops like Dave's Video, Ken Cranes, and occasionally Virgin Megastore. Virgin charged full price, though, and weren't very good about taking back damaged discs. Ken Cranes was rather far from where I lived. I bought mostly from Dave's, and it felt like a special place at the time. First of all the salespeople knew what they were talking about (they also sold hardware); secondly their merchandise was discounted (not much, but at the time it felt like a good deal). Lastly, it was the one place where directors would come to talk and sign discs, and celebrities occasionally shopped there.

After the rise of DVD, I buy LDs now off of ebay, local used record stores like Amoeba or Atomic records, and from this site.

There are a few, but they only sell DVD/VCD/Blu Ray. I've found one or two specialist music stores hidden away which have a few music LDs and the odd film, but nothing much. Sham Shui Po is by far the best place to find LDs (or at least, out of everywhere I've discovered so far!).

Well in Australia there wern't any actual LaserDiscs made for our country (well some rental discs) so most had to be imported. However strangly there were some players that were made for the Australian market. I don't even know why they bothered marketing players here if they couldn't market the 'Discs here too.

Back in the 90s I visited Perth, and the HMV stores were selling a PAL Laserdisc of Independence Day. I take it that that was imported then?

Well, yes. Most Australian LD's are comprised US or UK versions with the Australia Government ratings stickers plastering the MPAA or BBFC ratings. But no actual discs where made for Australia (except a few rentals like Terminator 2) most were from UK and the rest where from the US when they could not source a PAL copy which would happen occasionally.