‘Don’t bin it, box it!’: How Vintage Cash Cow made it easier to sell antiques

It began with a real phone call. “How much to come and collect my husband?” asked the caller. “I’m sure he’s priceless,” replied David Weaver. Now you can find the following on the company’s website: “Vintage Cash Cow are always looking for new product ranges to sell. If you don’t see your item in one of our many existing categories, then send us a message to let us know what you’ve got. Sadly we are unable to accept live animals, badly behaved children, or ex-husbands/wives.” Vintage Cash Cow, co-founded by David Weaver, doesn’t like to see anything go to waste – not even jokes.

Like all high achievers, Weaver was smart enough to drop out of school. “I only got 3 GCSEs. And I had to do retakes. Most of my friends had already transcended and gone on to university.” He found working in a claims management call centre “more exciting”. But then the company he worked for went into the short-term loan business, and Weaver decided it wasn’t for him.

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He was inspired by a book, Running Lean by Ash Maurya, subtitled: “Iterate from plan A to a plan that really works”. “After reading that I felt I’d got what I needed to go on to the next level,” says Weaver. And he duly started an e-cigarette liquid subscription service. But then something else – entirely unplanned – turned up. A friend told him about an antiques dealer who needed a decent website. Which is how he came to meet Antony Charman.

Charman was buying and selling antiques at roadshows when his kids said to him, “Why can’t people post you stuff?” Together, over the next few months, Charman and Weaver started working out what a website might look like, and designing labels for boxes. “I got drawn in,” says Weaver. “I was really into it.” He moved to Leeds and took a spare room in Charman’s house in the summer of 2015. They launched Vintage Cash Cow in February 2016.

And the rest is – well, not history, but perhaps the future of history, i.e. the question of what people should do with all their old stuff. They can leave it at the bottom of their cupboard where it’s collecting dust; they can chuck it out; or, better still, they can send it to Vintage Cash Cow and get a price for it. “Don’t bin it, box it!” as they say. Whatever it is, someone somewhere will probably want it. You’re decluttering, and recycling, and you’re getting paid for it.

“I took every single phone call,” says Weaver. “It was about doing the right thing. But I also thought – if we get less than four-and-a-half stars on Trustpilot then we don’t have a business.” Fact: the business has a score of 4.7 on Trustpilot – “When contacted by phone I was always dealt with and spoken to with the utmost respect,” says one happy customer. “It’s trust-dependent,” says Weaver. “You’re asking people to take their old valuables and stick them in a box and post it to someone they’ve never met before. It may or may not be a real Rolex. So they have to be able to trust you.”

The business took off. Five years ago they posted their first Facebook ad. Weaver recalls that he had gone to the cinema to see Deadpool. But it turned out he had to go back another time to actually see the film. “I didn’t see much of it the first time around – people kept on registering and I had to keep refreshing the page. The glare from the phone was probably pissing people off.”

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The way it works is this: Vintage Cash Cow makes you an offer. If you don’t like the offer, you get your stuff back for free. “It’s the least we can do,” says Weaver. Most people – in fact 99 per cent – like the offer. But it isn’t just individuals. Charity shop managers were soon getting in touch with them too. They had stuff they couldn’t shift and they wondered if Vintage Cash Cow could sell it for them. Answer – yes, it could.

The turning point was in 2018 when they were approached by Age UK, who rolled out the system to 384 shops. “That’s when it got serious,” says Weaver. Gary Wilkinson, who had 16 years of experience in charity fundraising, was recruited in 2019 to run that side of the business. “We work with a lot of the big national charities,” says Wilkinson. “Mind, YMCA, Marie Curie. But there are so many local ones too, ones you’ve never heard of. Tiny ones with one shop – or no shop.” Vintage Cash Cow now has a network of 400 different charities and 2000 shops on its database.

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The business went from one room in a big building in Leeds to taking over the entire building. Weaver showed me around, virtually: it’s half-Amazon warehouse, half-Aladdin’s cave. Here you will find old coins, jewellery, broken pocket-watches, Rolexes (real and unreal), medals, cigarette lighters, cameras, assorted bric a brac. It’s amazing how much of it there is. On average people send in a kilo of coins. Weaver estimates they have 60 tons of coins alone, including mixed foreign currency. “We know most homes have this stuff – it’s a fact.” They have fifteen people alone sorting and sifting the costume jewellery, equipped with metal-analysing equipment that detects what it’s made of.

I had no idea that pre-1919 silver coins are 92 per cent silver: pre-1947 they’re still 50 per cent. They’re worth way more than a sixpence or a half-crown. “A typical box will have some nice pieces,” says Weaver. “It’s our job to turn it into cash.” Coins go to their coin specialist, while silver plate is shipped to Belgium. Some of it goes as far afield as China. “We sell three times more on Weibo than we sell on eBay.” The website has comments from some of the people who are glad they didn’t throw stuff in the bin: “… paid for my flight to see my brother in Tennessee. My next box is already half-full”. “They’re our best advert,” says Weaver.

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He gives me a simple example of an item that came in from a charity shop. “It was a silver tray. Had a £3.50 label on it. It contained £150 of silver.” He reckons that ultimately all charity shops will become drop-off points. “Why wouldn’t you get the specialists? They don’t have the experience we have.”

Vintage Cash Cow now has backing from the founders of Just Eat and WeTransfer. It has lots of trials with shops lined up for when they reopen. Weaver has a vision of the future in which the company is connecting the dots between charities and individuals and matching supply to demand. “We will one day be in every country. We can help an enormous number of people around the world.” Maybe it isn’t Plan A, but it’s definitely a plan that works.

@andymartinink