A Chat with Steve Singer, president, Hartford York

CS: Had you had any experience in cataloging when you bought the company?

Singer: Yes, I was co-founder/owner of a company called Lilliput Motor Co., which we started in 1990.

CS: Tell me a little bit about that experience, starting that catalog.

Singer: Lilliput was a great, little company. My partner and I started it in 1990, after a failed retail store — a toy store in San Francisco. At the time we were selling a very narrow product mix that was entirely mechanical toy cars. Kid's mechanical, toy cars. The company product palette expanded rapidly during the 1990s, and it was a great little venture. We started the company on credit cards, and we prospered from the very beginning. We sold the company in 1996 to Genesis Direct, and bought it back from them a few years later when they failed. That company is still very much in business. I left it in 1999.