Deep Discount DVD.

Since securing steady income eighteen months ago, I’ve developed the pricey hobby of building a DVD collection. I’ve gotten real good at finding cheap ways of adding to it as well. I’ve basically reconstructed my childhood with Knight Rider, The Simpsons and Star Trek, and I’ve made room for new classics like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Arrested Development and Battlestar Galactica.

I think that DVD collections (TV and film) have replaced book collections. In the future, when playwrights compose scenes in someone’s study, the characters will walk and talk around a large shelf of old DVDs, rather than first edition books.

The key to building your collection, of course, is to keep costs down, particularly if you plan on adding a lot all at once. I’ve found Amazon.com to be a great source of good DVD pricing thanks to their frequent sales, discounts and offers. Also, they have the Amazon marketplace, where people sell that unopened season 2 of House they got for their birthday, but were too polite to tell their grandmother (who was none too subtly hinting that he/she should go to medical school) they didn’t watch the show. That’s where I snagged season 2 for $25.00.

I’ve never found eBay to be a strong source for cheap discounts because you have to bid against others who are thinking along the same wavelength of adding to collections cheaply. And whenever there’s a Buy It Now button, the prices are invariably the same as most retail stores.

Which brings me to the retailers. Best Buy and Circuit City are pretty good for TV shows upon their initial releases. But beyond that, they can be pretty useless. The best deal I ever got at a Best Buy was seasons 1 & 2 of 24 for $20 each, but that was on Black Friday last year.

But the secret retail store that has reaped many rewards for diligence has been EB Games. They buy and sell used DVDs and they mark those prices WAY down. That’s where I purchased season one of Battlestar Galactica for $20, a set that retails on average for $44. Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (typically retails between $70-$100) for $40; and my wonderful girlfriend surprised me by snagging the Simpsons season eight for $25 less than a month after its release.

So, there are deals to be found out there in the real world. The cyber world is covered in them, too. But if you’re a nerd, or want to be a nerd, and you need a vast DVD collection to convince others of said nerdiness, then consider this a helpful post on how to begin your journey towards building the Most Awesomest Collection of DVDs Ever.

Monday: The Worst Song of 2006.