If you’re at a garage sale, and you see a VHS tape of a McDonald’s training video, drop what you’re doing and call Mitsu Okubo.

Okubo is a VHS collector and co-founder of Basement VHS , a loose-knit collective that’s amassed a stockpile of more than 3,000 VHS tapes in a Mission District basement. And like most collectors, Okubo has a white whale.

“There’s a lot of McDonald’s employee training tapes out there, but there’s this one in particular, released to address the tragedy of 9/11 that was exclusively shown to their employees,” Okubo says, covetously. “It’s literally a Ronald McDonald, like, ‘This is how we deal with the tragedy of 9/11 with our employees and customers.’”

‘The Basement Tapes,’ published by VS Press, presents a collection of VHS tapes in all their glory. (Courtesy

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