CLEAN OUTS.
Garage Sale & Household Clean Outs
Do you have leftover items from a garage sale, or a basement that needs to be cleaned out?Call us. We can save you lots of time and money!
We can assess the items and – depending on what you have – either offer a reasonable payment, or just take the entire lot off your hands for free.
What’s the difference between items we’ll pay for and those we’ll just haul off for free? Resale value, pure and simple.
Those old floral vases or plastic items aren’t worth anything for resale; nor are salt & pepper shaker sets (we know, we have scads of them!). Old televisions and lumpy couches are hard to get rid of and usually end up at the dump, as is almost any broken furniture. Clothing, dishes & glassware, pots & pans, and linens are the kinds of items that we give away to very low income people as part of our voucher system.
We understand that you’re hoping your junk is someone else’s treasure. Fairly often it is. But far more often, it really isn’t. (We know; we’ve had inventory that – while not the most exciting stuff on the block – we thought people would want. Sometimes they won’t even take it at a free curb alert!!) We can usually tell the difference because of our experience in this business.
Things We Can’t/Won’t Take
Depending on the size of the clean-out, there may be things we can’t take. For example, we don’t have the space and/or the customer base for such things as computers or computer parts, medical equipment, encyclopedias, mattresses, old televisions, or big items such as those big heavy steel case desks. Most of those kinds of things you’ll have to dispose of on your own. Non profits such as Goodwill usually won’t accept them, which means we would have to take them to the dump, and incur tipping fees. And if they’re big and bulky, we’d have to hire someone to move them – or even hire a truck as well – which makes it not worth our time to do your clean out.
If the clean out is really big (and we have the potential to make some decent money at it), then we might help out by taking the items listed above off your hands. It all depends….
There are other things we won’t take because of the potential liability… older cribs can’t be resold, and we won’t take chances on trying to sell or give away car seats or helmets. (Although we’ll take them to the dump for you.)
Also, we don’t really take clothing for our shops, unless it’s definitely vintage or for some reason it happens to strike our fancy. We just don’t have the room to display it properly. In both 2014 and 2015, we accepted huge amounts of clothing which we donated to Goodwill, a local church, and then as a “curb alert”. (During the summer of 2015 alone, we gave away over two dozen of those large plastic totes of clothing, because we don’t have the room to display it.) However, Goodwill and some of the non profits are thrilled to get decent clothing donated, so if it’s too much of a hassle for you to deal with, we can take care of it for you.
PURCHASES, CONSIGNMENTS & RENTALS, BY APPOINTMENT ONLY!
Please call for an appointment if you want to sell personal items, or put your inventory in the shop on consignment or via a rental agreement. There’s only one of us now, and we’ve had people show up just as the shop is opening (a busy time for us), or closing (we’re usually in a rush to get to our social work job), and even expect to be waited on when paying customers are trying to check out.
Selling Your Items to Us.
We ordinarily will not buy inventory from people we don’t know unless we’ve discussed it with you beforehand. There are many reasons for this, which include disliking telling you that there’s probably a very big gap between what you want to get and what we can pay and make a profit at. We really do prefer purchasing from estate sales and auctions.
Also, if we buy from you, we have to take all of your personal information, to cover ourselves just as if we were a pawn shop. Otherwise, someone could come in and argue that your grandmother’s Woodstock poster was stolen from them and we’d be out both the money we paid, and the poster itself. Not cool. Not fun.
Consignment Options
We will sometimes take items on consignment if they fit with our own unique and varied style. As of 2016, the consignment fee is 33% of whatever price you want to sell your item(s) for (i.e. 33% is the amount we take). That’s lower than most other consignment shops!
Booth or Table Space Rental
Our shop is pretty full but we can make room for vendors wishing to rent space, rather than going the consignment route.
For between $100-$250 a month, you can rent a space dedicated to your inventory. Come on by and let’s talk!
VALUING YOUR COLLECTIONS.
Although we can usually give you a good sense of what your prized items or collections are worth (either off the top of our heads, or by searching our subscription services), we are not appraisers. If you need a firm value for insurance or other purposes, you’re best going to someone with that specific kind of background. We’re glad to give referrals if that will help.
We have had the unhappy task of telling some people that their collections have lost value over the years. Such items as Bradford Mint collector’s plates are mostly worth very little, as are collectibles such as Hummel figurines. Beanie Babies and Cabbage Patch dolls? Sorry, but they just don’t sell.
We’ll do our best to give you a fair and honest value for your collection.
Heritage Collectibles of Maine 