However I did toss out my eight tracks....all except for a few that I found in a very snazzy, shinny case, made specifically for eight track tapes. And they were grabbed up at my last yard sale. The tapes were big and bulky, jammed easily, had very poor sound quality, but you could listen to them in your car or truck as you cruised around on a warm summer night with the windows rolled down. And it might have been more than a little difficult to get them into and or out of the tape deck, sometimes the case came out and the tape, which was a continuous loop stayed in there wrapped numerous times around just about everything. Still it was exhilarating to turn up the speakers and roll down the windows, cruise along, listening to Fleetwood Mac, Boston, McKendree Spring, yeah whoever..it was a new kind of freedom. Listening to your favorite tunes, no commercials, and no DJs. Listening to the music you like, and only that music as you drove along, though by current levels of technology that doesn't sound like much, it was alot then. Some cars even came with a factory installed Eight Track player. It would seem that these fragile and pioneering plastic wonders would really be in demand by collectors. Certainly those that didn't get warped by being left on the dashboard, or tangled up inside the workings of the tape deck, or just tossed out the window by a frustrated user, would be rare items. Perhaps they are rare items, but they are not , except for a few , of any value. In those days we lived nearer to town and it was not unusual to find tapes in our yard of Saturday or Sunday mornings. Some of them still worked. Free tunes!!! But that was then.Did you know that the Eight Track was invented by William Lear, yes the same guy invented the Learjet. Both symbols of their time.
