Museum Donations

It goes without saying, the Museum involves having a lot of physical items and equipment to showcase and this operation is mostly done via out of pocket expenses by our founder. We're a small group doing this out of our own desire to share anime and home video with fans, but it's not a cheap operation to say the least. We've been lucky enough since the beginning to have had people be willing to donate items, equipment, and even money to help make the Museum become what it is so far and we can never thank people enough for that generosity.

Below is an FAQ on ways you can help support the Museum either financially or through donating items; but there are other ways you can help as well.  Anyone willing and able to help provided knowledge or materials on electronics repair and maintenance is something we are also looking for help with.

Monetary Donations

• • How can I donate money to the Museum?

    • We accept donations via Cashapp, KoFi, and Paypal currently. You can find links to all three of those here: https://bio.link/animevidmuseum

  • What do these donations go towards?

    • • Any money donated to the Museum goes towards helping maintain the Museum in various ways but goes first and foremost to equipment maintenance, travel expensive like trailer rental fees, and transport materials. Any money we have left over after these costs will go towards future goals, such as eventually obtaining our own personal cargo trailer, more maintenance equipment like an oscilloscope and disc repair machine, and more.

Donating to the Museum's Collection

• How can I donate physical items to the Museum? 

  • Contact us via email with the subject header "Museum Item Donation" and let us know what you are interested in donating and include attached images of the items you wish to send.
    We do ask that you please look through the Museum's Collection Database first to make sure we do not have an item already. If you do wish to donate a duplicate item, we may be willing to accept it, especially if it's an item that is still factory sealed or a promotional copy. 

• What kind of home video items is the Museum looking for?

  • The Museum is always looking for home video releases both from the US, Japan, and around the world, DVDs and Blurays are always great to have, but we also are always interested in releases on Betamax, laserdisc, HD-DVD, UMD, and other rare and short lived formats. Having more import releases from Japan or elsewhere is also something we would be interested in having more of as well. 

  • In regards to VHS tapes, due to the format's known degradation issues and long time prominence on the market,  we are most interested in rarer tapes overall (releases from the 1980s-early 90s, and imports) and may decline certain tapes (Funimation's old dub only Dragon Ball Z releases for example). It never hurts to send us an inquiry regardless, but do keep this in mind with VHS.

• What kind of unusual or rare items is the Museum looking for?

  • The Museum's goal is to provide physical examples of anime on home video in as many variations and formats as possible, while we currently have anime on over a dozen different formats, there are other formats out there we have yet to obtain! A big thing we would love to have are releases from outside of Japan and America, especially anime releases on European only formats like Video 2000 or Television Electronic Discs would be nice to have one day.

• Are there items the Museum will not take?

  • We're open to accepting most any kind of  physical media releases of anime, but we do have some caveats on certain items we will not accept any of the following:
    VideoCDs not from Japan, bootleg releases of any kind, heavily worn or damaged items (torn or damaged packaging, moldy tapes, scratched up discs, etc), fansub tapes or burned discs, and cut out magazine page ads. 

• Will you accept adult anime titles like hentai releases?

  • Yes, we are open to accepting such items under specific considerations. The Museum does have a few adult titles in the collection, but keep in mind these are titles with a certain "providence" to them, ie rare items like the UK only release La Blue Girl Returns on UMD (the only English release of a hentai on that format). Also due to many conventions and events being all ages, we will not have be able to have these items out on full display or playing except under specific circumstances.

• Can I donate hardware and equipment to the Museum?

  • Of course! Having working equipment is key to the Museum's mission, and while we have a nice assortment of equipment, we may be willing to accept hardware in specific circumstances. We would love to one day be able to showcase media that was released on the PAL format for example.

• Can I donate other materials like magazines and promotional materials?

  • Yes, we are open to accepting these things. Items such as anime focused magazines (excluding Anime Insider), promotional or movie sized posters, and promotion or advertising fliers or displays are acceptable. In regards to magazines, because they are not physical media items, they will not appear on the Museum Collection's database. However, we will work to have such items scanned and archived for posterity in the future. 

• How will I be credited for my donations?

  • All donations will be listed in our database with a "Donated by" credit next to it. We will also have a placard at the Museum  listing the names of those who have contributed items at our in person exhibits as well. When donating items, please include the name you wish to be credited under so that your name can be added.

• Do you offer monetary compensation for items?

  • Because the items are a donation, the assumption is that you are providing this item free of charge to us. We are willing to help reimburse the cost of shipping and handling for any donations to the Museum. If we accept your donation, after you have shipped it out, please provide a receipt of the shipping and handling costs and once we receive the items, we will contact you on providing a method to pay back those costs.

  • If you are wanting donate hardware items such as players or a TV, we may arrange instead for you to provide that item in person at an event the Museum due to how expensive the shipping costs could be for such things.