How many music cassettes did the average person have in their collection during the 1980s?

Question by Andy: How many music cassettes did the average person have in their collection during the 1980s?
I am curious as to how many music cassettes a typical American had in their collection during the 1980s. I seem to recall each of my parents having tons of them on the shelves when I was growing up. If anyone knows statistically anything about distribution rates, that would be appreciated as well (1 in __ people owned a tape cassette player). If resources can be cited, it would be appreciated.

Best answer:

Answer by Socrates
What are you talking about? I still have my cassette collection! Of course, it’s all live Phish MMW Grateful Dead, Bob Marley etc. bootlegs… so it’s kind of irreplacable. And I also happen to drive a sweet ’98 subie which has both tape and cd! (awesome)

You see, back in the day, before torrents and soulseek, people used to trade tapes of live shows by snail mail! And they used the early forms of the “internet” for things called “tape trees.” I used to hang out in forums and IRC chats to find people to trade with.

One of the main rules was, it has to be Maxell XL-II’s. None of that cheap crap!

To answer your question, I probably have a little over a hundred… but most of them are bootlegs and not official store bought tapes.

I have no sources for you. All I can say is I was born in 1983, and I was years late getting a cd player. In fact, I just bought my first portable MP3 player like 2 weeks ago!

What do you think? Answer below!