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Hugh Hamilton has been in the antique billiard table business for some thirty years. Recently, he decided he wanted to try something new and is building up a new business supplying Retro and Vintage Furniture, Lighting and Accessories. Here Hugh talks to Digger at Retrosellers.com about his new venture.

Digger: Can you tell us a little about the background to Hamilton & Co?

Hugh: I had another business for almost thirty years which was supplying antique billiard tables and games, which I eventually sold 18 months ago to my two managers. And we were restorers of antique tables and other decorative objects connected with billiards and games at the top end of the market. I decided to go into furniture with a lot of restoration and this new, small business.
 
Digger: Small but beautifully formed?
 
Hugh: Exactly.
 
Digger: You’ve got some terrific stock on the website.
 
Hugh: I’m only just building it up and I’ve put another twenty items on this week. I’m actually in the middle of photographing a whole load of stuff now. I’m trying, to be honest, to build it up over the next couple of years and I’m not in a rush.
 
Digger: There’s that cliché that if you can start and sustain a business in this environment you can do so anytime.
 
Hugh: Yes, well I’m very excited about starting this new venture.
 
Digger: What are the best sellers and the most popular era for your clients?
 
Hugh: It really is the fifties, sixties and seventies, and mainly the sixties. They’re the three decades I cover.
 
Digger: Are you finding these people are trying to deck out their entire houses or are they looking at selected items?
 
Hugh: They’re looking at selected items. Through my previous company, I’ve got a lot of connections with interior designers and set designers, because we supplied the top end of the market for over twenty years via Hamilton Billiards. It was the leading billiard company, exporting all over the world and supplying the domestic market and through my contacts I’m selling furniture and trying to build up the lighting side of the business too. I am selling to a lot of younger people who are looking at individual objects but also to mix and match antiques and modern furniture.
 
Digger: I’m kicking myself because I had a beautiful fibre-optic lamp from the seventies which was a black globe shape in smoked Perspex and I threw it away when I thought it had passed its sell-by date. It would be worth a lot today.
 
Hugh: Well probably. What I find interesting about this market is that you have the lower end of the market which is general furniture from that period, then you’ve got middle-range which tends to be early Heals, early G-Plan and early Ercol. Quality, well-made furniture from the UK and Scandinavia. Then you’ve got the top end of the market which is designer furniture – one-off, beautifully designed pieces.
 
Digger: Like you’d possibly buy in Tottenham Court Road?
 
Hugh: Yes and Alfie’s Market and Praed Street. Lots of Italian and American fifties and sixties stuff.
 
Digger: Is there still a lot of material to be sourced out there?

Hugh: I think there’s quite a lot of it still around and I’m not having a problem at the moment. I’m just building my stock up slowly because I’m restoring at the same time. I don’t want to end up with a whole load of stuff that’s not restored. I’m buying three, four or five pieces a week, restoring them, putting them on the website and I’ve got a warehouse where I’m accumulating a lot of stock. It’s a growing business.
 
Digger: What gives you the greatest pleasure doing what you do?
 
Hugh: I think basically it’s searching for good quality antiques from that period, restoring them to their former glory and then obviously selling them. I actually enjoy the whole process. I mean, buying is great but selling is also rewarding and dealing with the customers. I’ve done it for thirty years and I get a buzz out of giving people good service.
 
Digger: And having something that was in tatty condition, turning it around and also making a fair profit as well.
 

Hugh: Exactly. I’m not buying anything that’s too damaged. I used to do that with billiard tables. We had so many antique tables with chunks of carving missing and I’m avoiding that.
 
Digger: What is your retro/collecting passion?

Hugh: It’s really furniture from that period. I also like antiques but I’m really going to try to focus my mind. Because I’ve been offered a lot of antiques but I’ve only got a small antiques section on my website. It really is a passion for good design, well made.
 
Digger: Are you happy for them to pass through your hands, for you to be the custodian for a while and then to sell them on?
 
Hugh: Very happy to do that.
 
Digger: What does the Internet mean to your business?
 
Hugh: I’m hoping to be totally Internet based. It’s going to mean everything to the business. I’m building the website up and I’m selling quite a lot of stuff on eBay as well, which I eventually want to avoid.
 
Digger: eBay used to be a proper auction but it certainly isn’t these days. And their commissions have gone up so much.
 
Hugh: They have. I’m doing it on eBay so I can test the market and I’m putting some items into auction houses and my main selling priority is going to be the website, secondly will be markets and big antique fairs which we’ll be attending and eventually I may get a shop.
 
Digger: So people can come along and have a look at and feel of the stock?
 
Hugh: They can do that now because I have a small unit and I want to avoid a big showroom like I had in the previous business if I can. I’m just trying to keep the costs down.
 
Digger: How big is the restoration part of your business?

Hugh: I have another guy who works with me on the restoration and the majority of items I collect need some form of restoration. So it’s very important.
 
Digger: Does that cover lighting too?
 
Hugh: Yes, we have to have lighting re-wired. We polish up any woodwork. I’m finding it slightly difficult to find sixties and seventies lighting.
 
Digger: There was a shop in a side road off Shaftesbury Avenue near Centre Point called Tom Tom which was full to the brim on two floors with fantastic sixties and seventies plastic furniture, ball chairs, lights and retro electronics.
 
Hugh: What happened to it?
 
Digger: I wish I knew. A friend bought some furniture there but I don’t know what happened to the shop and its stock. It’s not there now.
 
Hugh: The problem in London is that the rents and rates are particularly high and I don’t know how people survive there.
 
Digger: There were several wonderful movie memorabilia shops in the West End a few years ago and they’ve all closed now.
 
Hugh: Like on Portobello Road, when their lease come up for renewal these people are pushed out and bars and restaurants open up instead. I know so many people who have moved their businesses out of London. Or have become antique fairs-based.
 
Digger: How do you see the future of Hamilton & Co?
 
Hugh: I feel very optimistic.
 
Digger: Good.
 
Hugh: I feel it’s going to be a very interesting next five years and with the credit crunch I think the market I’m in, and antiques, will really grow. I know a lot of young people who are buying them, not only from the fifties, sixties and seventies but also actual antiques. Personally I think there’s going to be a lot of growth. I can supply a 1960s handmade sideboard, for example, and I’ve got about twelve of those. Beautifully made and if someone said “Can you make me a sideboard that goes with my billiard table?" it would probably cost around £2-3,000 minimum. And I can supply a really nice restored piece for £300.
 
Digger: That’s an incredible value isn’t it?
 
Hugh: With Ercol, I can buy a table and chairs that look shabby and spend some time on them and sell a set of Ercol chairs and a table for, say, £500. The contemporary equivalent would retail at well over £2,000.
 
Digger: It’s amazing isn’t it? In the recessionary times we are in there are three good reasons for people to be buying from you. Obviously there’s the fact that you’re cheaper than the modern versions and they can make a big saving now, these originals look and feel so much better but also because these items are a great investment.
 
Hugh: They are and they’re great value. They look nice and they’re so well made. I know what it costs to manufacture.
 
Digger: The older items have a nicer smell as well that comes with a bit of age.
 
Hugh: They do, they look good in a modern house. I sold some items to a set designer recently because there seem to be a number of nostalgic productions going on at the moment.
 
Digger: There always are period and nostalgia-based programmes - we're fixated with the past..
 
Hugh: So I feel positive about it and I’m going to build it very slowly as I did my previous business and see where it takes me.
 
Digger: Good for you. 
 
Hugh: I think what I’m enjoying most is that billiard tables were a limited market and we’d go to certain exhibitions and fairs, but only a small amount of people want to buy billiard tables and they’re not a mass market product. Very desirable and we’ve sold tables to people all over the world but because it was limited I got fed up with it in the end.
 
Digger: There’s  much more variety in what you’re doing. It sounds like a perfect business on all levels. Something you enjoy, it’s sustainable and it will grow. Thanks for letting us know about your new business Hugh.

Hugh: Thanks David.

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