It's All Part of the Game

The book describes how a character, starting with virtually no money and absolutely no knowledge of antiques, managed to learn and bit by bit, claw his way up the trade echelon to finally run a massive antique shop on the Welsh Marches. The tale includes door knocking escapades, the odd romantic dalliance, chanced successes, embarrassing failures, the antique ring, local gypsies, the Irish travellers, a court case and even a house clearance in Australia. It is related by a contemporary author, who having chanced on a character with first hand experience of those exciting times, uses the information, plus contacts he provides, to delve back in time, thus revealing the inside story of the antique business, over a period, roughly spanning 1974-2004. All is described with a humorous touch and even though fiction, events are true to the spirit of those times. Interspersed in the story, are little nuggets of local history, anecdotes of an almost Bohemian nature and when able to contact survivors from those years, light hearted banter. An insight is given regarding the difficulty of finding the right stock and how surprisingly narrow, some of the profit margins. Reasons are given, as to why certain things sold, plus how the vast majority that didn't, could potentially clog a business to a standstill. The book describes years of plenty and years of near bankruptcy, while on each rung of the trade ladder, pitfalls and certain individuals intent on blocking an aspiring dealer's progress, awaited. Whether humour or near tragedy, however, both are told in the same matter of fact manner.