Page 38 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

tory. "It's not like everybody thinks," he Greiner and his wife have health prob- of space left." His wife wants to actu-
said. "It's not a way to make a million lems. Greiner is fighting diabetes and ally put a car in one garage. Another is
dollars. I don't think anybody's going to recurring exhaustion. However, he will used for his office. The third he'll fill
get rich selling old video games. It's continue to help the new owners, a with shelves. There's also a storage
particularly tough if you're trying to do it young couple, with the business for an building in back that he may store
as a dealer with taxes and those re- undetermined amount of time. household items in or make a game
quirements." He believes collectors (Basically as long as he feels like it.) room out of. He will free up a patio,
who sell a lot but aren't officially in He'll keep a personal stock of rarer which has some boxes on it that he
business will eventually discover the items for trade. "When I first started never unpacked after receiving them.
pleasure of dealing with the IRS. "It accumulating things, I was accumulat- All of these areas were filled to the ceil-
costs me more to try to keep track of ing them for trade. I picked up a num- ing with boxes of games and consoles.
the paperwork than to pay the taxes," ber of contacts from The 2600 Connec- "I've met a lot of nice people and
he quipped. tion and the Digital Press. Everybody good friends through the hobby. I've
Greiner feels the hobby of collecting had the good stuff that I wanted but had people stop by from all over the
classic video games has grown since they wouldn't sell it; they wanted to world," Greiner concluded. "It's been
he went into business. "I think things trade for it. So I started trying to collect more fun than work, although it's been
like eBay have been very helpful to the the better stuff to use for trading. And kind of stressful at times. I’m hoping I
hobby, but they're also very detrimen- then people would get mad at me be- can get a little more rest, get my health
tal. I'm not sure, in the long run, if it's cause I wouldn't sell it. Finally I broke built back up where I can do more
going to kill the hobby or increase the down and sold some. This time I don't things. I hope I can make the game
hobby. It's been good from the stand- intend to break down and sell." show in Las Vegas this year. I missed
point that it brings recognition among Greiner did, however, sell large the first two." I hope you can make it,
people that these things have value to chunks of his collection as part of get- too, Jerry. No doubt it'll be even more
somebody and it encourages more ting out of the business. Much of it fun for you now that you're "retired."
people to look for them,” Greiner says. brought a higher price than he had an-
He continues, “I think the detrimen- ticipated. He said it was difficult to part
tal part has been that no matter who with some of it, particularly the obscure Ed note: Jerry did, in fact, make it to the
you talk to in the last couple of years, titles he hadn't had time to play. this year’s Expo. Thanks, Jerry,
it's extremely difficult to find anything at When asked what he would do with for stopping by our booth and
all; the reason being every collector all the new space, he replied, "I'm not allowing us to snap your pic-
ture!
buys everything he can with the idea of so sure there's going to be a whole lot
selling the excess on eBay. And so
there's not the stuff out there for some-
body like myself or the collectors who
started when I did to go along and say,
'oh, look at this, I think I'll just buy one
of these for the heck of it,' unless we're
the first guy at the sale. The change
that I've seen is that there are more
customers who buy from me because
they want to play a 2600 game than
there are collectors who want a particu-
lar title or label or something."
When asked if the expansion of the
Internet might play into this, he
agreed. "When I first started, basically
I did snail mail catalogs. Now I haven't
printed a catalog in three years. Most
of the same names are still doing busi-
ness with me, except now they're using
the Internet."
I asked Greiner if the decision to
leave the video game business had
been long in coming and if it was a diffi-
cult one. He said, "It was probably a
matter of several years in coming. It
was very difficult to make the final deci-
sion because I didn't really want to get
out of games."
He decided to keep the hobby, but
quit the business. He will continue to
maintain the video game museum por-
tion of his former web site at
www.atari2600.com.
"I guess the biggest problem for me
and the biggest reason that I decided I
had to quit was I was just unable to
keep up [with shipments]," he said.
Another big factor was that both

Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 38