Greetings,

My name is Gordy Granger and I have been selling photo equipment on EBAY for over 16 years. I've been around of selling camera equipment for close to 50 years.  I married and have a wonder wife and 4 fantastic children.  I live in the Minnesota  In the last 19 years, my wife and I have parented 9 foster children 3 of which we ended up adopting.  At times we have up to 4 children in out home.  I wife work outside the home and I stay home  to deal with children.  For several years, I would go to used camera equipment shows around the Midwest and sell camera equipment. When our youngest child was born in 1999, I found that I could make more money selling on Ebay then going to camera shows.  In 2007 I  took over running the F-Stop Swap Used Camera Equipment.

My exposure to camera equipment began at a very early age. 

It all started because of my father.  After World War II, he worked for the Eastman Kodak store in Chicago.  After taking a correspondence course in photography, he became a professional photographer. He and my mother moved to Spooner Wisconsin in the early 1950's and started working as a professional photographer.  In the mid 1950's, he moved the family to Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Where is was offered a job as a manager in a camera store call Century Camera.  Which was located next to the University Of Minnesota, in a area called dinkytown.  

I was born in 1958.  In 1960 my father left Century Camera and stated a photo finishing and camera store called Minicustom. he did all types of black and white photofinishing, but he specialized in developing and printing subminiature film..  Minicustom was located a block away for the old University Of Minnesota Stadium in an area called Stadium Village.   In the mid 1960's is sold the processing part of the store to an employee, and renamed the store Village Camera Shop. Village Camera Shop was a small one man store. In the close to 20 years that it was opened, I don't think he ever had a paid employee.  I remember in the late 1960's going to the store to help him out.  Sometimes I would take a bus from out home in south Minneapolis to downtown Minneapolis, then I would catch a bus to the University of Minnesota.   Many times I would drive with him to the store on Saturday's to help him at the shop.  We would always start the day with going out to breakfast, then working at the shop until early afternoon.

I can't remember for sure, but from late 1960's to the mid 1970's I spent most of my Saturdays at the store.  My the mid 1970's. In the mid 1970's he even trusted me enough to run the store by myself, so it could take a vacation with my mother.

During the late 1970's I also had several part time jobs, working in other camera stores.  Some of the stores that I worked at were Pako Photo, JC Penney Photo Department, Fisher Photo in St. Paul (I was their a very short time), and in the late 1970's I even tried doing custom Black & White photofinishing for my father's store.

My father sold Village Camera around 1980. For the next 11 or twelve years, I worked in other areas other then cameras.  I sold cars, I had a small business that took in packages to ship UPS, and rented out private mail boxes. 

My Short Biography

Some of the cameras that I have owned over the years.

mplspeddler

SELLING PHOTO EQUIPMENT ON EBAY FOR OVER 16 YEARS