The Big Amazon Discovery
Probably the one I was the most pleased with a couple of years ago was a chance find. While doing a generic search for Mastervision, as well as finding a number of tapes I didn’t own, something strange came up. A concert video from singer Tony Bennett. It was a title I hadn’t heard of, but more unusually the packaging bore no resemblance whatsoever to the Mastervision standard layout. Obviously, I had to know more…
After a quick message, the seller replied with more photos and the tape indeed proved to be a Mastervision title! The spine featured the correct numbering, and the tape was correctly labeled. For some reason, this cassette was part of a In Concert Series sub-range. Like the Bulldog and Entertainment USA ranges from the software side of Mastertronic, this appeared to be a sub-set while still part of the main range’s numbering. It was quite an exciting find.
Working with Derek closely on this, we found several other titles in this range including performances from Tom Jones and Fats Domino. The exact box art does also appear to have been used by another publisher (I assume the company they were licensed from). The only differences between the two is the catalogue number and the company name and address on the rear making them difficult to spot unless photos show the rear and the cassette. Regardless, this was a huge step forward with the listing and potentially meant that we identified several more titles overnight! With two confirmed and several potential tapes it certainly gave us something to look for…
Hard Work
But the rest of the search isn’t that easy. It was clear that titles released by Mastervision also appeared on a large number of other labels as I’ve already mentioned. Just identifying all of the releases on these labels is a massive undertaking in itself. And then there’s no guarantee that any of them made their way across to Mastervision. With the likes of MY-TV, Video Masterpiece, Playtime, and Kids Cartoon Collection at the forefront of the search the task is enormous.
We’ve been able to narrow the search down occasionally when tapes have appeared on more than one of the ranges I’ve mentioned, but even then that’s not an indicator that something is going to be a Mastervision release. Sometimes, it truly is a case of dumb luck for us finding new tapes!
Just Like Buses
One thing I have found is that Mastervision tapes seem to be like buses. You can be searching for years to track a tape down with no luck. Then when you finally manage to get one, loads of them seem to turn up for sale everywhere! One of the most notable in recent times was a copy of the anime title Candy Candy. While a copy had been listed on Amazon for several years, it was permanently out of stock. We had only ever seen one listed on eBay, but by the time we discovered it, it was a sold listing so too late for either of us to get it.
Then one turned up in a bulk listing on a Facebook group for a ridiculously low price of £1! Days later, another turned up on eBay for almost £400 with the seller seemingly thinking he was sitting on a goldmine. But those weren’t the only copies of this rarity… Another appeared – of all places – in an American listing of anime videos and DVDs. Then two further copies appeared. And all of this was in the space of a couple of months!
Progress So Far
It’s amazing to look back and see how far the hunt has come. A few months into our quest and we knew of around a dozen Mastervision titles. At the start my own collection had just three cassettes. Now we’ve identified 40 and I own 39 of those. Is it possible that we’ll have identified the entire range in the next year or so? It may well happen. Just watch this space…
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