Does my Thing have to be clean?
Oh, yes. As a cleaning guide:
You should remove dust, dirt, bug guts, road salt, pet hair, fluff in velcro, mud & pebbles from boot soles, and any excessive signs that the item was ever inhabited by a human. Make sure there’s no smells like sweat, smoke of any kind, mothballs, mildew or mold.
Jeebus, by all that’s reasonable, do NOT bring us filthy things stored all winter in the damp garage where a stray cat pee’d on it. all. winter. long. You’ll get it back hastily with a helping of side-eye.
Any tips on cleaning?
Of course! Too many tips to list them all, but in brief:
Textile gear can be separated into component parts, hand-washed, and hung to dry. You may need to re-waterproof afterwards. Some folks machine-wash. We consider that risky, but you do you. Close your zips and your velcro so these fasteners don’t go cannibalistic and shred your Cordura.
Heavy biker leather garments may be turned inside out, and the lining sponged and rinsed and air-dried (no heat, but lots of flowing air, please). The outside maybe be rubbed into a lather with saddlesoap and water, then rinsed, and dried in the same manner.
Tough boots will benefit from a brisk scrub of the sole, and an adventure with saddlesoap similar to the above. Unlace ’em, and remove insoles and kilties for cleaning.
Got no saddlesoap for your leather? Clear glycerine soap bars can often do in a pinch. But perhaps you might have to re-condition after. (Also… we sell saddlesoap and other cleaning supplies.)
Suede, lambskin, porous and fashion-textured leathers are super-hard to clean safely, and we can’t offer any brief advice. Take care; there are lots of ways to ruin a fashion garment.
Will you clean my item?
Sometimes! If you don’t have time to clean items properly, we may arrange to do it for you (if time / staffing permits). We’ll charge a fixed cleaning fee, according to the level of help the Thing needs. This arrangement / fee is done only by agreement — the cleaning/repair fee will be shown per item in your original contract.
What if my items needs FIXING?
If you consider the cost of fixing the thing, and the return you’re likely to get from selling a thing, and it seems worth it to you to get it fixed, we recommend Awl Together Leather ( https://awltogetherleather.ca/ ) because we have found them downright awesome for many years now. Also sometimes we will make an agreement with you to get it fixed for you, and then subtract the cost of repair from your consignment payout.
I’m going to say a true thing here — sometimes the cost of repairing a thing back to marketable condition is more than you might make selling it. This is a decision best considered carefully and with a calculator.