Collecting is a common behaviour, with many people having their own favourite niche thing to collect.
You have coins, spoons, stamps, trading cards, comics, video games, figurines, you name it.
Some people may even take it further and turn their hobby and passion into a business.
Well three 30 and under Greek Australians have done just that with their own interests.
Tasso Kapetopoulos, 24, Dimitri Wilson, 25, and George Tsiolas, 30, have all started a business selling comics, retro video games and Pokémon cards respectively.
Backseat Comics: Reviving forgotten stories
For Tasso, online store Backseat Comics comes after four to five years working in comic retail, a job that ignited a passion for him.
“I’ve fallen in love with it completely and so has my business partner Jet,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“We love new comics, we love the new stories that are coming out but we also have a deep appreciation for older comics and old stories that kind of have gone out of print and are quite hard to come by.
“So we’ve decided that we would create a business to kind of highlight those stories that aren’t really being re- printed or told any more, moving on pre-loved comic books to people that are getting into the industry.”
This is especially so because the industry has been around forever, and new generations come around.
“A lot of comic stores are finding that the new wave readers are young uni students or teenagers in high school of all sorts of genders finding a new love for the comics,” Tasso says.
While Tasso did read comics when he was younger he fell out of love for them through high school, he admits it’s something that is new to him and over the last couple of years he’s began to read more.
So he too is among his potential customers in finding out about old stories.
“There’s some incredible stories and printing of comics that you may forget about or you’ve not heard of before and it’s interesting just to see them,” he says.
“Especially when we buy collections and we see these people sending photos of what they’re wanting to sell, like wow you know, some of it’s pretty cool.”
Hard Copy: From fashion to retro gaming
Dimitri Wilson has been into retro gaming since he was a kid but the business side of it came about after he realised there was good money to make.
He’s particularly into Xbox 360, and was buying bundles of games on Facebook Marketplace, keeping what he wanted and selling the rest (including consoles and controllers).
“I noticed I was easily tripling my money and being able to keep games that I wanted and still profiting, so I started buying more and more stuff and it ended up being pretty good just through eBay,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“I was pretty much making a solid living and then I was like screw it, I’m just gonna open a store.”
And that he did, opening used/retro games store Hard Copy on 272 St Kilda Rd, St Kilda.
At the time he had just moved back to his parents in Melbourne from America, having lived there for his fashion design career, and wanted to set out on his own again.
And it was when asked about the difference in Australian and American retro game stores, that Dimitri came to a realisation of how he may have been inspired.
“I’ll tell you what, my main subconscious inspiration for thinking that selling games would be a good idea and to put everything into an opening a store, is when I was younger, when I first got into retro gaming, my godmother was having a wedding in Los Angeles and I got my dad to take me to a local game store… and I fell in love with the store,” he says.
“I’ve kind of based my store of what I’ve seen in America, in Japan.”
Dimitri also runs the store completely on his own which he describes as a “dream”, buying and selling something that he’s interested in.
He also says as a collector, and it’s something he hears all the time from customers, one of the best feeling is when you find out an item you bought for cheap ends up being worth $200 years later.
Gogi Collectibles: Pokémon cards and community
George has taken his passion even further than Tasso and Dimitri, creating a name for himself online as a Pokémon content creator.
READ MORE: Pokémon cards: From childhood hobby to $100,000 collection
He officially started Gogi Collectibles in 2023 but the passion behind it goes back years, to when he was a little kid buying packs with his brother at the milk bar.
“I’ve always loved collecting — Pokémon especially — and over time, I saw how much the community was growing,” he tells Neos Kosmos.
“The turning point was when I realised I could actually turn this passion into a real business, not just by selling cards, but by creating content, connecting with people, and building something bigger than just transactions.
“That’s when I decided to go all in.”
George engages in his hobby with the wider online Pokémon community through his YouTube channel GOGI, which he says played a massive role in his journey.
It has allowed him to not only show products, but tell stories, show behind the scenes of his card hunts, connecting directly with other collectors and fans.
He also has followers and subscribers from Greece and Cyprus which he says is “very special” to him.
Another opportunity George gets to connect with collectors and potential customers directly is at vendor shows, which he also documents on his YouTube.
He says doing these was a game-changer.
“Being out there, face-to-face with the community, talking to kids, collectors, and families — it reminded me why I started this,” he says.
“The energy is amazing. The highlight for me is definitely connecting with people who genuinely love the hobby.
“Seeing someone light up when they find a card they’ve been searching for — that’s what it’s all about. It’s real, it’s fun, and it makes all the hard work worth it.”