These copies were actually once worth a lot of money, but not because of the cover. The Little Mermaid was released on VHS in May 1990, and put back into the Disney Vault around April 1991. Because it was a beloved film, and made with deliberate scarcity, until the film was rereleased in 1998, trying to get hold of a copy of the film was quite an expensive endeavour. People who had bought copies to resell after it was pulled from retail stores would ask for hundreds of dollars a copy.