If you have watched The Bidding Room, there is a good chance Adi Higham stood out. He is not the sort of antiques dealer who seems interested only in polished cabinets, expensive jewellery or perfectly catalogued collectors’ pieces. His appeal comes from something broader: curiosity.
Searches for adi higham wikipedia usually come from viewers who want to know more about the man behind the deals — where he came from, how he entered the antiques trade, what he buys and how television became part of his career.
His story is particularly interesting because it did not begin with formal training or a grand antiques shop. It began with a cheap bike, a successful resale and the realisation that buying and selling old things could become a living.
Who is Adi Higham?
Adi Higham, also known as Adrian Higham, is a British antiques dealer and television personality. He became familiar to a wider audience through BBC One’s The Bidding Room, where members of the public bring unusual possessions to a group of professional dealers and decide whether to accept their offers.
Before television came along, however, Higham had already spent many years working in antiques.
A Radio Times profile published in 2020 stated that he had been dealing for around 30 years and had started when he was 21. It also described him as someone with a particular liking for toys and mechanical objects, while noting that his buying interests can range from furniture to textiles.
That broad taste helps explain why he seems comfortable dealing with unusual objects. Some dealers build a career around one tightly defined field. Higham’s public interviews suggest a rather different approach: if something has character, history or simply makes him curious, it may catch his attention.
His career started with a £10 mountain bike
One of the most appealing parts of Higham’s story is how ordinary his introduction to the antiques trade was.
In a 2020 interview with Folk & Fable Antiques, he explained that he bought a mountain bike for £10 at a local village auction and sold it for £90. That profit gave him what he described as the “buzz” of dealing and encouraged him to start visiting more auctions.
There was no complicated business plan involved.
He simply began buying things he liked and learning what could be sold.
That is a useful insight into traditional antiques dealing. Knowledge matters enormously, but much of that knowledge is built gradually. Dealers learn by visiting auctions, handling objects, watching prices, speaking to other traders and sometimes making mistakes.
Higham himself has advised newcomers to take things slowly, develop their own style and spend only what they can afford to lose.
It is practical advice because the antiques market can be unpredictable. An item that looks like an obvious bargain may sit unsold for months, while something overlooked by everyone else can suddenly attract strong demand.
A strong connection with French antiques
France has played a major role in Higham’s buying style.
When asked about his speciality in the 2020 Folk & Fable interview, he said that almost all of what he was buying at the time came from France. He also spoke about the attraction of buying there and the French appreciation of history.
That connection is reflected in Hoof Brocante, the antiques business associated with Higham and Tara Franklin.
The word brocante is commonly associated with French second-hand and vintage markets. A brocante can contain almost anything: old furniture, mirrors, textiles, garden pieces, architectural salvage, domestic objects, toys and decorative items.
This is a good fit for Higham’s style because he does not appear to approach antiques as a narrow category.
His interest is often in the personality of an object.
A slightly battered old toy, faded French chair or unusual industrial item may have more appeal than something technically more valuable but less distinctive.
Hoof Brocante
Hoof Brocante is an important part of Higham’s professional life.
Antiques Trade Gazette described the business on the Romney Marshes as being owned by Higham and Tara Franklin. It identified Franklin as a textiles expert and Higham as a vintage toy specialist, while noting that their stock covered a much wider range of pieces.
Those items have included French mirrors, country furniture, architectural antiques, antique textiles and decorative pieces.
The combination makes sense.
Tara Franklin has also influenced Higham’s buying choices. In his Folk & Fable interview, Higham said that she had encouraged him to notice and appreciate things he might previously have ignored.
That matters because successful dealers do not simply memorise values. They develop an eye.
Sometimes that means knowing exactly what an object is. At other times, it means recognising that something unusual has decorative appeal even if it does not fit neatly into a traditional antiques category.
Why Adi Higham works well on The Bidding Room
The Bidding Room gave Higham a much larger public profile.
The format is simple but effective. Members of the public arrive with items they hope to sell, a valuation gives them some idea of what the object might be worth, and several dealers can compete to buy it.
Higham was among the dealers featured in the programme, and his wide-ranging buying habits suited the format particularly well.
The items coming through the doors can be unpredictable.
That means a dealer who only buys one type of object may frequently have little reason to bid. Higham’s enthusiasm for toys, unusual pieces and objects with a slightly eccentric quality gives him more freedom.
In a later interview, he said that when he agreed to appear on the programme, he knew the production team would struggle to find exactly the sort of things he and Tara normally bought in France. He therefore decided to approach the programme with an open mind.
That approach led him towards old toys, teddy bears and some genuinely odd pieces.
He even recalled buying a tin supposedly containing London fog from the 1920s because he enjoyed unusual objects.
Whether or not such an item has obvious practical value is almost beside the point. It tells you something about the sort of dealer he is.
He genuinely enjoys television
For some antiques experts, television is simply another part of their professional career.
Higham has spoken rather more enthusiastically about it.
In his 2021 interview with Folk & Fable Antiques, he said he had always wanted to appear on television and described being part of a programme as something he found exciting. He also said that combining television with antiques made him feel fortunate.
That enthusiasm probably explains some of his on-screen personality.
He does not appear to treat filming as an interruption to the “real” business of dealing. Instead, television seems to complement the part of the job he already enjoys: meeting people, discovering strange objects, negotiating and telling stories.
He also said that one of his favourite aspects of The Bidding Room was receiving messages from viewers and meeting people who visited Hoof Brocante after seeing the programme.
Toys remain a recurring interest
Although Higham buys broadly, vintage toys are one of the areas most closely linked with him.
Antiques Trade Gazette has described him as a vintage toy specialist, while Radio Times highlighted his enthusiasm for toys and objects involving steam or smoke.
Old toys are a fascinating area of collecting because value can depend on many things.
Condition matters, but so does rarity. Original packaging can make a dramatic difference. The manufacturer, age, materials and whether parts have been replaced can also affect desirability.
Then there is nostalgia.
Collectors do not always buy purely because something is rare. A toy associated with childhood can create emotional demand that is difficult to measure with a simple price guide.
That combination of history, personality and unpredictability makes the field a natural match for Higham’s broader approach to dealing.
Some of his favourite and strangest finds
One of the pleasures of following antiques dealers is discovering what they consider memorable.
Higham has mentioned a 1969 Peugeot French fire engine as a favourite find.
That choice says quite a lot.
It is not a small decorative object that could quietly sit in a glass cabinet. It is large, eccentric and difficult to ignore.
His trade stories are similarly colourful.
In one interview, Higham described arriving at the Swinderby antiques fair with a truck full of French furniture, selling both the furniture and the truck, and then becoming involved in a chain of vehicle trades before eventually returning to France.
Stories like that reveal how different traditional dealing can be from modern online retail.
A trader may begin the morning expecting to sell furniture and finish the day having swapped vehicles, bought unexpected stock and completely changed the plan.
That unpredictability is part of the attraction for many people in the trade.
What can new antiques dealers learn from him?
Higham’s career offers a few useful lessons without turning his experience into a formula everyone should copy.
The first is simple: start small.
His own entry into the business came through one inexpensive purchase rather than a huge investment.
Second, develop your own taste.
Trying to buy everything other people say is valuable can quickly become confusing. Dealers generally become more confident when they understand what genuinely interests them.
Third, mistakes are part of the process.
Higham has openly discussed purchases that did not work out as expected. In television bidding especially, competition can push prices beyond what a dealer initially intended to pay.
And finally, knowledge does not remain fixed.
Markets change. Interior trends change. Online selling has changed how dealers reach customers, and items once regarded as unfashionable can return to popularity.
A good dealer keeps watching.
Adi Higham and Tara Franklin
Tara Franklin appears regularly in accounts of Higham’s professional life.
Together they are associated with Hoof Brocante, while their specialist interests complement one another. Franklin is connected particularly with textiles, while Higham has been associated with vintage toys.
Higham has also publicly referred to Tara as his partner and credited her with having an important influence on his buying style.
Beyond information they have chosen to discuss publicly, however, there is little reason to turn their private life into speculation.
For readers interested in Higham because of television, the better-documented story is their work together in the antiques trade and their shared involvement with French brocante.
Frequently asked questions
What is Adi Higham’s full name?
His full name is Adrian Higham, although he is generally known professionally as Adi Higham. Radio Times lists him as “Adi (Adrian) Higham”.
How did Adi Higham become an antiques dealer?
He has said that his interest in dealing began after buying a mountain bike for £10 at a village auction and selling it for £90. That successful transaction encouraged him to attend more auctions and continue buying and selling.
What is Adi Higham known for?
He is known as an antiques dealer, as one of the dealers associated with The Bidding Room, and through Hoof Brocante. Vintage toys and French antiques are among the areas particularly associated with his work.
What is Hoof Brocante?
Hoof Brocante is an antiques business associated with Higham and Tara Franklin. Its stock has included French furniture, mirrors, textiles, architectural pieces and other vintage and decorative objects.
What is Adi Higham’s net worth?
There is no reliable public financial documentation establishing his personal net worth. Figures appearing on unsourced biography or celebrity websites should therefore be treated as speculation rather than confirmed information.
Final thoughts
Adi Higham’s career is a good example of how an antiques dealer can build expertise through years of buying, selling and learning rather than following one fixed route into the profession.
A £10 bicycle helped start the journey. French buying trips, vintage toys, unusual finds and Hoof Brocante became part of the story later. Television then introduced him to an audience far beyond the traditional antiques world.
What makes his public career interesting is not simply that he knows old objects. It is the enthusiasm with which he approaches them. The odd, the forgotten and the slightly eccentric all seem capable of earning a second look — and in the antiques trade, that second look can sometimes be where the best stories begin.
