50 Years Of Trading At Andy’s

The News, Portsmouth

4 months ago

Transcript

00:00Hi, my name's Max. This is Andes. We are celebrating 50 years of Andes and I'm the third generation.

00:06There's my grandad, my dad and myself. And within this business we have three businesses.

00:11Army Surplus, Maritime Antiques and Airsoft.

00:14There's a lot of naval around so we also buy and sell a lot of it as well.

00:18So a lot of people are coming in and selling us bits.

00:20But a bit of a niche. I mean there used to be a lot of army shops in every city, every town.

00:24And now that is going down a lot now. There's not a lot in each town and each city.

00:29But we're one that's been keep going for 50 years now.

00:32So we keep going strong and obviously with the third generation.

00:35And I have a little girl as well. So maybe the fourth generation, who knows.

00:38But yeah, we'll have to wait and see. But yeah.

00:41Maybe with a touch of pink.

00:42Maybe, yeah. But I'll have to add a Barbie section or something.

00:45But yeah.

00:46Hello everyone. My name's Paul Anderson.

00:48I am the owner of Andes Army Surplus Store Stroke Maritime Antiques.

00:54My father was a butcher.

00:56And we got out of the butchering game in 1975.

01:00We rented a shop in New Road for £25 a week.

01:05And we carried that on to 1980.

01:08That's where I come into play.

01:10And we ended up buying the building in New Road.

01:13And we were there for 35 years.

01:16Well, he went from meat, obviously being the butcher, to scrap metal.

01:22And the scrap metal, through the government surplus business, led on to the textiles,

01:26led on to buying Willy's Jeeps, whatever the MOD had for sale.

01:31So when the scrap metal was becoming a little bit more difficult to get hold of, due to the Falklands,

01:37that we had to move into a slightly different direction.

01:40So we moved over into the clothing or the boots and the furniture.

01:46We used to do a lot of army surplus furniture.

01:48I think we just like getting out and doing different things and trying something different as well.

01:52I think being so close to the sea, I think the maritime and all that interested us.

01:57The ship's world and the history behind it all as well.

02:00Obviously with Nelson and all that as well.

02:03So getting on the road is good.

02:05We like it.

02:06We like going and seeing different people and just showing everyone what we're all about as well.

02:09It's quite nice, obviously we've got 50 years of Andes and we've got three generations.

02:13And the story I've been telling a lot of people is my granddad started up the army surplus.

02:18My dad done the maritime antiques and I've started a new venture, Airsoft.

02:22So Andes Airsoft UK.

02:24We started like a little community as well within that.

02:26We've got members.

02:27We've got 70 members at the moment as well.

02:29So I want to kind of do it a little bit different compared to how my dad and my granddad have done it.

02:32And that more community aspect as well, bringing people together and trying a new hobby that they've never done before as well.

02:38We have two shooting ranges upstairs and I've kind of had free reign on it and built it how I want it.

02:43And I've had the vision to do that as well.

02:45We've got a mezzanine flooring and expanded it as well.

02:47So yeah, something I'm really interested in and excited for in the future too.

02:51Having a small family business, it's been difficult.

02:55I think during COVID it was really hard to say you can't go to work and the difficulties we have with that.

03:00With some really hard times thinking, what are we going to come back to?

03:03When are we going to be allowed to go back to work?

03:04When is it going to come back to normal?

03:06We've had to rely on a lot of internet stuff as well, which we're very old school.

03:10We like face to face interaction to people and having that repeat customer as well over the years.

03:15So we've had to change tack a little bit, but we're getting there.

03:18We're pushing through.

03:19And yeah, it seems like we're on the right track at the moment.

03:23One of my most memorable moments in the trade was buying a lot of lighthouse lights.

03:29I ended up with 40 lighthouse lights.

03:32And they're £5,000 each now and I had 40 of them.

03:36And also I used to wear a Rolex mil sub when I was 16.

03:40And those watches now are thousands.

03:44But you haven't kept one since.

03:46Sell anything to me.

03:49I love it for 10 minutes and then it's sold.

03:53This is the excitement.

03:55Anyone who's a dealer, we've got a shop or anything.

03:57The excitement is finding it and buying it.

04:01Once you've bought it, there's something else out there to buy.

04:04So you sell that and you move on.

04:06And then you move on.

50 Years Of Trading At Andy’s

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