Reel to Reel Tapes

"We have a bunch (two bags) of my parents' old reel to reel tapes, but no longer have the tape player--anyone out there want these? I have no idea what is on them."


Yes, before the mp3, before the CD, before the cassette, before the eight-track, there was another format - the reel-to-reel tape. Less convenient than a vinyl LP (what if they found a way to put music on spaghetti?), and less durable than a mayfly on a trout-patrolled pond in the spring, the reel-to-reel was crucial to professional music recording, but was a consumer electronics nightmare.

It did not survive. Today, if you walk the boulevards of major American cities, knocking on doors, you will be more likely to find someone willing to tell you that they expect Britney Spears to get through to Pope Benedict and secure a position as the first female Catholic priest than someone who owns a home stereo component reel tape player.

Nonetheless, for every obsolete technology there is a cadre of obsessives willing to bore you all night long with details on the magical merits of their chosen medium. Even these folks have their limits, however. Sure, they like to have things to play on the old Telefunken, but they're not going to drive to your house and sort through the bag on the promise of that one recording, that one time, made by that one guy, that probably isn't in there.


P.S. - Here at Vintage Microwave, we have to be cautious about our subjects. People do post "jokes" in the Free Stuff section. Not-very-funny, nobody's-ever-done-that!-boo-yaa! attempts to laugh it up, you know, like "free white toddler," or "free - my self-esteem." We obviously avoid engaging these charlatans, but there are other posts that are harder to decipher. We must determine if something is a legitimately inconceivable giveaway, or someone "mixing it up" with their comedy stylings. Accordingly, while it would have been shooting fish in a barrel, we declined to comment on the no, no a thousand times no, it can't possibly really be . . . "slightly used vibrator/dildo."