People ask how two people end up chasing antiques around the world for a living. Here's the honest version.
I've been a treasure hunter my whole life — I just didn't call it that. I grew up in a vintage car family, around a father who could make or fix anything, surrounded by some of the most beautifully engineered machines you'll ever see. Weekends meant car boot sales with my dad, then on my own as a teenager, always hunting for something everyone else had walked past. The stage was set early.
What I love hasn't changed since. It's the energy and craftsmanship someone poured into an object — any object — and the chance to rescue it: to appreciate it, keep it, or find it a home with someone who values time and real craft as much as I do. And I love the chase. Every market, every warehouse, every dusty back room holds the unknown, and the real possibility of finding something forgotten, overlooked, maybe even treasure. That feeling still fills me with joy.
Before this, I built businesses — eight or so small ones over the years. The last was an e-commerce brand making brassware in Asia, selling into the UK and US, and I sold it at the top of its game: a real success, going out on a high. Not because I'd run out of road, but because I'd worked out what the money was really for — to buy me the freedom to go and do what I love. So that's exactly what I did. And I never doubted it would work; you have to carry that belief, and honestly it's half of what makes it work.
So I came to Asia. And I met Angie.
Angie left her small island in the Philippines on her own more than a decade ago. She travelled, and started a travel blog back when blogging was new and took real graft — only the passionate survived. She taught herself Thai, taught for a while, and became so good in the travel industry that she ended up managing an entire region for a travel-tech company for seven years. She's a butterfly at heart: happiest among new people, new places, food and stories, moving from one to the next. It took a fair bit of my nagging and unwavering support, but eventually she wanted to see if she could chase passion instead of KPI targets.
So we took the leap together, and married in Hong Kong in 2026.
That's what Patina Hunters is. Two people who chose the hunt over the treadmill — the craftsmanship, the characters, the new places, and the freedom to go and find them. We buy, we deal, we teach what we know, and we film it all.
And here's the real reason we started this: not for followers or likes, but to help other people feel they can do it too — whatever it is they love, whether that's antiques, a small business, or a different kind of life altogether.
Because time, energy and love are the things that truly matter, and the best things to chase are the ones that took real time and effort to make. That's our version of a good life. Yours might look nothing like it, and that's the point. However you get there, we'd love to help you step away from the desk, even for a day, and go chase it.