What i'm referring to here is those prints with the sound out of sync to the image.

We've all seen them, but over the years of collecting, we have bought a number of films off second hand lists as well as a small handful of new titles. These wernt white box specials, they were from dealers and other collectors via the sales lists.

At some point, all of these out of sync prints would have been sold the the first customer as new who, for some weird reason, accepted them.
All the ones we bought with this fault went back for refunds or exchanges for something else.

Can anyone explain why collectors accepted these?

The rarity of the film subject matter ??

It would have to be something very special though. I could understand that if the film was purchased as a rare second hand print, but if it was purchased new, the selling dealer should be able to do something about it.

There was a time, many years ago, when Disney didn't issue sound copies of their short cartoons on Super 8, only as silent titles. Derann used to sell these silent titles, still in their Disney boxes with SILENT marked on them after having striped them and added the sound.

I bought two such titles, "Pluto's Christmas Tree" and "Clock Cleaners". The latter was much cheaper to buy and when I asked "why" I was told it was out of sync.

But, I did buy it. The out of sync sequence was short. This is when the two automated figures come out and strike the bell. Unfortunately, Goofy is inside the bell to clean it. The out of sync was when the hammer hit the bell, the "Bong" was not in sync. But it didn't really matter.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jIiL9ruJDA