I did inquire about the tape (where it came from, if he’d seen its contents, etc), but he had no idea. In short, it was something (along with everything else that was on sale) that had been buried in his father’s basement, who had passed away, and he was simply getting rid of miscellaneous items.
He didn’t even know if the tape worked, and seemed to really not care all that much. At least, that was my read.
But he offered me the tape for 50 cents (actually, he offered me the entire lot of VHS cassette tapes – about 20 of them; but I didn’t want the others, some of which I was already familiar with); And at that price (50 cents) it obviously wasn’t a purchase I hesitated to make, even though I had no idea what the tape contained and whether it even played. (he didn’t own a VHS player, so I couldn’t test it before buying). But I figured, it’s a measly 50 cents, whether the tape works or not.