Drew Pritchard Biography

Welcome to the Drew Pritchard blog. Drew Pritchard is a well-known television personality, popular as the presenter of Discovery hit show, ‘Salvage Hunters’. Often being dubbed ‘The Real Lovejoy’ for his domination in antique & restoration dealing, he is also an antique expert who has a perfect eye for spotting a diamond.

Drew Pritchard Background Information
Drew Pritchard birthname is Andrew Thomas Pritchard. He was born in Conwy, Wales in 1970. Drew was raised in a working-class Welsh family. His father was a keen car and motorcycle enthusiast and Drew developed his love of restoration, as there was often a motorcycle repair kit on their kitchen table. He currently resides in the Welsh coastal town of Llandudno, where he also runs an antiques shop, with several of his team and children.

Drew Pritchard Age
He was born in June 1970 in Conwy, Clwyd, Wales.

Drew Pritchard Childhood & Education:

• Drew was raised in Conwy and attended the local schools, but salvaging and restoration was always his passion.. thanks partly to his father's passion for vintage and motorcycles.
• He mentions that he was definitely a salvager prior to being a restorer. Ever since he was eight, he scoured local tips in rural Wales. He looked for anything that people had thrown away but particulary went after pushbikes and car badges.

Drew Pritchard Net Worth & Business

• He has an estimated net worth of $8 Million.
• DP Classics is another of Drew's business, which concentrates on the classic car and motorycle
• restoration side of his passion. Drew runs his business alongside his good friend, engineer, race driver and motor writer, Clive Holland.
• Many of Drew's finds and restorations can be bought online on the website drewpritchard (dot) co.uk

Drew Pritchard Shop
Location:

9/11 High Street
Conwy
LL32 8DE
Tel: 07483 300783

Opening Times:

Monday to Saturday: 10am – 5pm
Sunday and Bank Holidays: 11am – 4pm

Drew Pritchard shares how he got into the antiques trade

Welcome to the Drew Pritchard blog. Drew Pritchard is the star of Quest TV's antiques show, Salavage Hunters. In today's blog, the Salvage Hunter shares how staining glass windows transformed his career in the antiques industry. Read to find out more.

I can’t remember a time when I was not completely absorbed by antiques. My father collected antiques, instruments and motorbikes and, as a result, I was immersed in the unusual and the old from a young age. What really got me excited wasn’t the pristine museum pieces that we saw on family holidays but the rusty, broken stuff I found in the fields around my childhood home of Glan Conwy, a village in north Wales.

Drew Pritchard: Behind the Scenes at an Antiques Fair

Welcome to the Drew Pritchard blog. In today's blog post, the Salvage Hunter shares tales of what really goes on at his favourite antiques fair. Read on to find out more.

Drew’s stand at the Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair/John Englefield

Of all the antiques fairs in London, The Decorative Antiques & Textiles Fair is my favourite. There are more expensive fairs and, arguably, some that are more prestigious but, if you’re into decorative antiques, it’s the best by a country mile.

I love the friendly atmosphere. It’s like a fantastic five-day market with dealers who really go to town on their stands. The visitors, who include the best international dealers and interior decorators as well as celebrities, are low-key. The dealers are allowed to remove and replace any stock that sells immediately, so there is an intense atmosphere because if visitors buy something, they can take it away there and then.

I’m now on the Standards Committee for the fair and I’ve had stands there for my business too. At the first one, a nearby stallholder was selling taxidermy. On the second day of the fair he said, ‘If ever you want to get a cup of tea or something, ask someone to mind your stand and give them your mobile number in case you’re away for 10 minutes or so.’ Good tip, I thought. Later on he said, ‘Mind my stand for me,’ and I said, ‘No problem,’ and took his mobile phone number.

" I love the friendly atmosphere. It’s like a fantastic five-day market with dealers who really go to town on their stands."  Drew Pritchard

He didn’t come back after 10 minutes. In fact, he didn’t come back that day, or the next. He came back two days later. ‘Where have you been?’ I asked him, astounded. ‘I’ve been shooting,’ he replied. I found out that he’d just been left a shooting estate – and I’d been selling and dealing for him for two days.

The second time I did the fair, I’d just come across some storming dining tables from the Welsh National Library in Aberystwyth – the perfect size, made in the 1970s, and I had about 12 of them. I couldn’t believe my luck. Now, the things you don’t take to antiques fairs are big tables – they don’t sell – but no one had told me this.

I rolled up, pleased as punch with myself, and a very experienced dealer friend, Richard, said, ‘You’ll never sell these.’ I was gutted. Yet somehow I sold every table. It was luck, the right product at the right price – trusting your instincts. Yet that’s not to say that I knew it all.

At the next fair I was selling a cellaret – a wine cooler with a drain hole and plug underneath to let out the ice when it was empty. This example had bronzed empire feet and was so big I could practically sit in it. By 6pm, Rob, a fellow dealer, and I had been on our feet all day, so we had a bottle of wine, then another, and three or four dealers joined us. Half-an-hour before closing time a guy came over. ‘I’ll buy it,’ he said of the cellaret, ‘but I want it for a party tonight at my house in Chelsea.’ ‘No problem,’ I told him, ‘we’ll bring it round in a cab.’

Rob gave me a hand. We got to the house and the buyer wanted it on the top floor. We swayed and staggered up five storeys of a lavish house crammed with more empire furniture with bronzed feet – not a square metre without a fantastic piece on it. Unbeknown to me, Rob had been putting the empties in the cellaret all evening. When we got to the top and looked back, a deep red trail of wine had followed us up every floor from its unplugged drain, all over his beautiful carpet.

‘That’s a £40k bill to recarpet this house, at least,’ I thought in panic. The buyer looked up at us two dishevelled antiques dealers and simply said, ‘Don’t worry about it.’ So whenever he comes to my stand at the Decorative Fair, he now gets huge discounts. Some you win, some you lose, but it’s all the fun of the fair.

Drew Pritchard is the owner of one of the largest decorative salvage yards in the United Kingdom - Fabulously British Salvage - Drew Pritchard is always looking for new pieces to replenish his shop, and he has no problem scouring the countryside to find them. See pieces Drew Pritchard currently has for sale here. Read more about Drew Pritchard here. Follow the official Drew Pritchard Facebook page here for more  tips about antique restoration & the Salvage Hunter himself.

Drew Pritchard's tips for buying antiques