18 Years Ago Today...Buying The Real Ghostbusters Soundtrack Cassette

Those of you who know me, know that I'm a bit of a hoarder; especially digitally, where I have almost a Terabyte of stuff going back over 20 years. A lot of it is personal stuff, like AOL Instant Messenger chat transcripts with my friends, multimedia of all sorts, and saved message board posts. It's that latter category which is the reason for this post today.

I was digging through my files and came across this old Ghostbusters Central Message Board post that I wrote 18 years ago today. It recalls the time I bought a second copy of The Real Ghostbusters soundtrack album, and got more than I expected!

Topic: RGB Soundtrack, I'm So Happy
Author: spookcentral
Posted: 12-12-2000 04:11 PM (Ghostbusters Central Message Board)

Greetings All

I hope you don't mind if I share my little tale with all of you. I'm so happy that I just have to share this with someone.

A month or so ago I noticed that MediaPlay.com had an RGB soundtrack cassette tape for sale (you'll notice that it's no longer available - I bought the only one they had). I put the URL aside so that I could buy it at a later date. Since I already have one, my intention was to buy all they they have, presumably a dozen or so, and resell them on my site for a higher price (so I could make a profit).

Well, this past Friday I fired up the web browser, went to their site, and placed an order for 8 of them (the most I could afford at that time). I got a message back telling me that they didn't have 8 in stock, they only had 1. So, I ordered the 1 cassette for $6.63, plus $4.99 for Priority Mail shipping (they had a cheaper shipping rate, but I don't want to wait 4-6 weeks for my package).

I figured that I'd keep the cassette as a spare, in case the one I have gets worn out (even though I've already burned a copy to CD). Quicker then Santa Claus, the package arrived today (4 days later - including weekend!) I didn't think that it was my cassette because the package was a bit large (like letter size).

When I opened it up and saw what was inside, I was nearly in tears. Instead of receiving the standard cassette, like the one I bought almost 10 years ago (via special order from my local record store - which isn't in business anymore), I received the one designed for the kiddie market, which is the same one Doreen (from the GBFF) bought many years ago. The kicker is that it is STILL FACTORY SEALED!!! As you can see in the scans below, it not only includes the cassette and the cardboard cover art/liner notes, but also a little storybook with stickers inside.

This is clearly worth a lot more than the $6.63 that I paid for it. I'm pretty sure that this album is harder to find than most RGB toys, and you know how much they're worth factory-sealed. I'm guessing that this is probably worth 10 times the amount I paid for it. As much as I'd like to open it to fully view the liner notes and book & stickers, I'm gonna keep it sealed.

I am absolutely ecstatic over this. I just can't believe what I bought!
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Yours Truly,
Paul Rudoff