Dentists, amiright?

So America's public school teachers are overworked, underpaid and have to buy supplies out of their own pocket but sure, this dentist had a million dollars to drop on a bunch of old games. I'm sure that was money well spent.

America: our priorities aren't great.

The real question here
is what's up with dentists? 

What am I talking about? Well, clearly you didn't click on my link. Even after I went through all the trouble of putting it there. Sigh. Guess I'll just explain. Again. Believe it or not, I'm not just complaining about how teachers make shit and dentists are rolling in cash and selling us unnecessary teeth whitenings and hawking sonic toothbrushes while you're still bibbed and helpless in their chairs-fine, I'm also complaining about that. Remember the last rich dentist we talked about? The one that wanted to clone John Lennon?

Anyway, what I want to talk about is the part where a guy called Eric Naierman bought a million dollars worth of video games. A million. Dollars. Of money. Yup, Naierman, a dentist from Florida-ugh, Florida-decided he was bored with collecting baseball cards.

One presumes this is because cards are lame and baseball is dumb.

Evaluates, grades them and then
seals them up for all eternity.

His solution? Collect video games instead. Ok. I mean, video games are objectively better than baseball cards, but how can one possibly spend a million dollars on them? Easily, it turns out. Naierman along with some collector friends who call themselves-I shit you not: The Video Game Club, bought a collection of forty factory-sealed, first run copies of classic NES games including Golf, Balloon Fight and Mario Bros. All of them locked inside hard plastic, protective cases and rated by Wata Games; a company that evaluates and grades games for the collectors' market.

Above: an unfortunate collector after
choosing a copy of Urban Champion.

And cool. I mean, it's super that Naierman has got a hobby, but I'm always a little troubled by the practice of collecting things. According to Denix Kahn, the CEO of Wata Games, these games "...are some of the holy grails and cream of the crop in terms of having this historic value..." First of all, weird allusion, because the thing about the holy grail is that there's only supposed to be the one. Something is the holy grail of a particular category or it's not. You can't have holy grails of video games. Secondly, it's not like they're going to a museum (yes, there's a video game museum).

Wait-someone told him he could get
these games digitally, right? For
way less than a million dollars?

They're going into Nairman and pals' houses or whatever to slowly deteriorate inside their plastic cases. And I know they're not rare games in terms of content. Like, they're mostly all available as digital downloads or on eBay for a few bucks. It's the physical games and boxes in perfect condition that make them valuable. And I'm not sure what historical value they have beyond "hey isn't that neat," but since no one other than whomever Naierman eventually sells them to someday is ever going to see them, what's the point? Collector's items just become currency for rich people.

Pictured: Portrait of Adele Bloch-
Bauer II. Currently on display in
some dude's mansion bathroom.

It's sort of like Oprah. Well, it's sort of like Gustav Klimt, but we'll get to Oprah. During World War II, the Nazis stole, among other things (like Poland), art. Nazis loved art. Their haul included a Klimt picture called Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer II. After the war, the Allies gave it to a museum and the niece of the woman in the painting spent years trying to get it returned. She eventually did, but ultimately sold it. Huh? I don't know, she was like ninety and survived the Nazis. She can do whatever she wants, ok? Next Oprah bought it and put it on display in a museum in New York for a few years. But then she sold it on to some guy in China. So now this rando rich guy is going to have this famous and important work of art hanging in his private gallery or whatever all because Oprah wanted to make a buck. Ok, in fairness to Oprah, she bought it for eighty million and sold it for one hundred and fifty, so like seventy million bucks. But remember that she's already super rich and has her own magazine, so you'd think she'd be cool and let the museum keep it, but what do I know? I'm not a rich person. I don't know how they think.

Look, I'm not telling Oprah or Naierman or whomever what to do with their money and I'm not suggesting that Duck Hunt has the same historical value as a Klimt painting. I guess it just bums me out that there's this weird drive out their to buy up things with cultural value and squirrel them away in our houses where no one else can see them.

Naierman, seen here brandishing some of the games.
If you're a patient of his, be sure to mention this next time
he tries to talk you into a gum graft or something.