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For UK charity shops and head offices only. WhatsApp first.

Vintage Piggy
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What we buyTrust centre
Trustee review route

For trustees who need a defensible answer before approving a new disposal route.

This page is written in the register trustees usually need: calm, technical, governance-aware, and uninterested in theatre. The question is not whether specialist donation value exists. It is whether the route used to capture it stands up later when somebody asks for the file.

Request a trustee review packRead the trust centre
What should happen next? Use the primary action when this page already matches your decision stage. Use the secondary route when you need a more formal page, form, or internal review step before the charity acts.

1. Human view first

The route starts with a real UK valuer or a page-specific enquiry, not a blind parcel and not a generic contact form.

2. Evidence next

The next step should create something usable inside the charity: a scheduled session, a governance review pack, a pilot conversation, or a written valuation trail.

3. Decision stays with the charity

Nothing on this site removes the charity's control. The branch, head office, trustee, or finance lead still decides whether to proceed once the evidence is on the table.

WhatsApp valuation

07375 071158

Phone

07763 741067

Hours

Open 7 days a week, from 7am to 9pm

For trustees who need a defensible answer before approving a new disposal route.
Governance rails

Registered charity bank account only. Written itemised valuation. Trustee-friendly PDF. Tracked return if declined.

Speed with discipline

Free same-day rough estimate before posting. Valuation within two hours on arrival. Same-day payment where cut-off rules are met.

Who this page is for

Written for the trustee or finance lead reading with due diligence in mind.

Service boundary

UK registered charity shops and their head offices only. The site is not written for the public or non-charity resellers.

Primary route

WhatsApp 07375 071158

Use this first for photo-led triage and same-day rough estimates.

Phone line

07763 741067

Use this when you need to talk through a branch, trustee, or pilot question.

What happens next

What a cautious trustee-approved first parcel looks like.

Step 1

Start with a pre-posting human valuation, because a trustee should not be asked to approve blind sending on marketing language alone.

Step 2

If the rough estimate supports it, the next step is the prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label rather than an informal or untracked route.

Step 3

On arrival, the written valuation and trustee-friendly summary come before acceptance, which keeps the control point on paper rather than in memory.

Step 4

If the charity does not wish to proceed, the items are returned free of charge, tracked and insured, and no payment is ever routed outside the registered charity bank account.

One-minute summary

What does a trustee or finance lead need to know before giving approval?

This section is written for quick internal review. Each answer is self-contained so a branch manager, retail lead, or trustee can lift the essential points without having to decode the whole page first.

Decision frame

A trustee is not being asked to approve an undefined postal buyer. The approval is for a process with a free pre-posting human valuation, prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label, written itemised valuation, same-day payment rules, and free tracked return if the final offer is declined.

Control points

The important controls are clear. The charity chooses whether to post after the rough estimate, chooses whether to accept after the written valuation, and receives payment only into the registered charity bank account. Those control points matter more than broad marketing assurances because they are what governance teams can evidence.

Honest limit

The model is designed for UK registered charity shops and their head offices only, and it is strongest for specialist donations that are awkward to price confidently in-store. It is not the best fit if a charity wants public walk-in buying, courier collection, or payment routes outside registered charity banking controls.

What we buy

  • Gold (all carats, broken, scrap, dental, single earrings, chains, rings, coins)
  • Silver (hallmarked, 925, plate clearly marked, cutlery, tea services)
  • Platinum (900 and 950)
  • Costume jewellery in bulk, paid per kilo — mangled, tangled, rough, no sorting required
  • Watches — vintage, designer, modern, broken, pocket, movement-only, parts
  • Antiques
  • Lightweight antiques (smalls, treen, boxes, desk items)
  • Coins (UK and world, pre-decimal, bullion, numismatic)
  • Medals and militaria (ethical handling, war graves sensitivity, family significance return option)
  • Vintage cameras
  • Musical instruments
  • Silverware
  • Pottery and porcelain (Wedgwood, Doulton, Moorcroft, Clarice Cliff, Royal Worcester, Minton, Beswick, Troika)
  • Collectables

Question 1

How does this fit with fiduciary duty over charity assets?

Trustees are expected to take reasonable care that charity assets are not disposed of casually. Vintage Piggy is designed to replace instinct and informal handling with a documented specialist route: photo-first estimate, insured postal movement, written valuation, registered-account-only payment, and a same-day return path where the offer is declined. That does not eliminate judgement, but it makes the judgement easier to defend.

Question 2

How is reputational and banking risk reduced rather than increased?

The service is charity-only, not public-facing, and payment goes only to the charity's registered bank account. There is no personal payout route, no till settlement, and no vague suspense mechanism. That narrow banking rule matters because it reduces the fraud surface and keeps the financial outcome aligned with the charity's formal records.

Question 3

What does the audit trail actually contain?

The audit trail is not just a payment confirmation. It includes tracked posting, receipt, valuation timing, written itemisation, and a trustee-friendly PDF summary suitable for circulation or file retention. In practice, that gives trustees a more reviewable record than the usual alternatives for uncertain specialist donations.

Question 4

Why mention free staff training on a trustee page?

Because good-faith partnership matters. A service that trains staff for free is showing the charity where value is being lost before asking for parcels. That makes the relationship easier to justify internally, because it improves shop-floor judgement even before any commercial transaction takes place.

Question 5

What is the safest route if the board wants evidence before approval?

Start with the trust centre and a contained pilot. A five-shop, thirty-day test gives trustees and senior staff a live governance file without committing the whole estate. That lets the charity review the reporting, parcel handling, banking discipline, and exit terms against actual use rather than theoretical promises.

Question 6

An honest trade-off

If the charity requires a fully negotiated procurement exercise, bespoke legal drafting, or a board-signoff pack before any first conversation, this page will not remove that need. Vintage Piggy is designed to be inspectable and defensible, but some institutions will still want a more formal review before use.

Trustee review pack

Request the trustee review pack.

Use this form when a trustee, finance lead, or governance reviewer wants the route documented properly before a first parcel or pilot is approved.

What the request should make clear

Whether the question is a single-branch approval or an estate-wide review.

Which documents matter most: banking, data protection, reporting, or exit rights.

Who will review the materials internally and what deadline matters.

Direct contact route

WhatsApp 07375 071158Phone 07763 741067
Read the trust centre
This form is a structured first step for a charity decision-maker. It does not create a commitment, a contract, or any payment obligation.

Continue the review

Which page should a cautious charity team read next?

These pages support the same decision from different angles. One explains process, one handles governance, and one gives the branch or head office a cleaner next action.

Next step

What we buy when a charity needs a specialist route, not a hurried guess.

Some donations are simple to price on a shop floor. Others are not. These fourteen categories are the areas where a free WhatsApp valuation before posting can protect value and save time.

Read this page

Next step

For charity finance directors who want to see the numbers before anyone signs anything.

Finance scrutiny is not friction. It is the point where the route either survives contact with reality or it does not. This page explains the cashflow, records, payment discipline, and why the first operational step does not require a complex procurement burden.

Read this page

Next step

The trust centre for trustees, finance leads, and serious retail operators.

This page answers the seven questions that usually matter before a charity adopts an external specialist buying route. It is written for readers who care about audit trail, banking discipline, and whether the process stands up when papers are reviewed later.

Read this page

Next step

Request a prepaid Royal Mail Special Delivery label.

This page is for a charity shop or branch contact who has already had, or is about to have, a conversation with a valuer. WhatsApp remains the first step. The label request comes after that.

Read this page

Trustee review route

Ask for the trustee review pack before approving a first parcel.

The pack should support board discussion, not replace it. If you want the fuller governance materials, the trust-centre page remains the main document set.

Request a trustee review packRead the trust centre

Before you act

The first control point is the pre-posting human estimate, not blind sending.

The second control point is the written valuation before any acceptance decision is made.

The final control point is payment to the registered charity bank account only, with tracked return if declined.

If the question is governance fit, the Trust Centre, trustee checklist, and sample pack are the right documents to review before any first parcel is approved.

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