OUR HISTORY

In the following 50 years, Amsterdam became more and more popular for tourists. It became easier for everyone to travel and because of Amsterdam's tolerant reputation, people from all over the world came to experience it for themselves. The Red Light District, the coffee shops, the beautiful canals and the distinctive architecture. Amsterdam grew into a truly global city and we grew with it. Asian art remained but room was made for smokes, hash pipes, papers and seeds. At the same time, as a kind of crowd puller, a sculpture was placed just in front of the entrance to the store. An African sculpture of an old slightly hunched man, with detailed contours in his face, a lean build and a short beard.

The Eberhardt Asian art store was very well known on the street. But this name did not seem to stick with the locals. In the vernacular, if you wanted to get something from our store, you went by the ''Old Man.'' This name became so well known that in 1978 there was a name change, Eberhardt Asian Art became The Old Man. The name changed, the Old Man stayed and it's still there. Every day. The man now has a legendary almost mythical status on the street. A familiar face in the always dynamic city center. A piece of Amsterdam's heritage if you ask us.

At the same time smoking products became increasingly popular and the decision was made to split the store into two unique stores. Asian Spirit and The Old Man Smoke Supplies & Gifts. The first Old Man as we know it today was born. The success of this one ran concurrently with the development of the city. The Old Man Smoke became one of the first Headshops in the Netherlands. And grew to become one of the downtown strongholds. An authentic souvenir store wrapped in a piece of history, still with a heart for Amsterdam.

Four years later, it was time to take a new direction. From Frank and Dick's passion at the time, an idea arose to start a store selling steel goods in the middle of the city center. Crazy would you think? But passion gets you a long way. They always talked with enthusiasm about the latest gadgets, innovations and developments within the knife market. Many regular customers, hobbyists and enthusiasts came to visit for a nice cup of coffee and a good conversation about knives, swords and you name it. The energy of that team 40 years ago still lives on in today's team. As before, they are up-to-date with everything that is going on in the market. And we can see that they act as a knowledge center when it comes to Knives & Tools.

This growth made room for new adventures. The idea, born in the saplings of the family business, was further fueled by trends in the city and in the mountains. Boarding, on the streets and in the snow was increasingly in demand. Only both sports were still in their infancy. Snowboarding was still done with hardboots and ski bindings. Dick, the current owner and his best buddy and colleague Roy (also still in the store), saw the opportunity to pioneer the snowboard and skate market in the Netherlands. In 1988, The Old Man Boardsports was born. Designated as a store for the skater and snowboarder. This is now our core business with 3 boardsports stores. One in the original location, Dam Street. Our largest store The Old Man South is on the Rijnstraat this is mainly snowboard oriented and our skate store Tom's Skateshop/ The Old Man West can be found on the clerqstraat.

Now we have arrived at the current situation. A time where a lot has changed, but one thing always remains the same: The Old Man in front of Damstraat 16. During the Corona period it was difficult for us. Amsterdam was deserted and The Old Man in the center was mostly empty. We decided not to stand still. We flew onto the web during this crisis. We worked hard to develop and improve a web shop to match the stores. TheOldMan.com which had great success during the corona time, kept our heads above water. And is still growing with our customers in 2023. The Old Man Smoke and Knives & Tools also developed web shops. Appropriately named TheOldManSmoke.com and TheOldManKnives.com. The unique combination of 3 specialty stores in one can now be found on the Internet.
In the future, we hope to expand our brand more strongly. Our mission for the coming time is to bring back old-fashioned shopping, integrated with current technologies. Nowadays money has to be made fast, everyone wants to be rich quick and companies see you more as a bag of money than a real person. We offer a counterpoint. In our (almost) 100-years of shopping experience, we know how to deal with customers. Not fast, fast, fast. But taking our time, giving good advice, having a quiet coffee, making a joke, making some extra effort. You can always come to us if you want honest, sincere advice about smokes, steelware, snowboards, surfboards, skateboards, winter jackets, shoes and everything else you can find in our stores. Always with a smile, always with some Amsterdam bravado, always with a humorous quip and always with an (ironically) youthful, fresh outlook. Familiar shopping, just like the Old Man at the door, always familiar. The Old Man stands for old-fashioned familiar shopping with a youthful enterprising spirit.