Spellman makes living buying, selling

Houlton Pioneer Times photo/Joseph Cyr
BUY AND SELL GUY — Rick Spellman is known as the “Buy and Sell” guy in southern Aroostook County and has forged quite a business for himself over the years. Spellman buys and sells everything from furniture, appliances and other household items, to musical equipment and automobiles.
By Joseph Cyr
Staff Writer
    HOULTON — Rick Spellman is renowned in southern Aroostook County as the “Buy and Sell” guy. What started out as a hobby as a youth has blossomed into an opportunity to be a self-employed entrepreneur.
    Being self-employed runs in the Spellman’s DNA as his father Fred and uncle (Harold Fitzpatrick), were known in their time as “wheelers and dealers.” Spellman said he first got into buying items when he was a small child when he tagged along with the two on bargain hunts.
    “I really don’t know how it started,” he said. “It just seemed logical to me to buy things and try to sell them for a profit.”
    Having acquired and distributed so many items over the years, Spellman said it was impossible to recall any one particular item he was fond of.
    “I buy and sell so many different things it impossible to say,” he said. “I will buy and sell anything that is legal to sell.”
    Popular cable television shows “Storage Wars” on A&E and “Auction Hunters” on Spike have portrayed the art of buying items and then “flipping” them as ways to quickly turn a profit. In those shows, an individual bids on a storage unit, paying anywhere from $150 to $1,000 for a unit, and then flips the items found inside for a hefty profit, often netting three times the value it was bought for.
    Spellman said while those deals may in fact pan out in large cities, it simply is not the case in Aroostook County.
    “Around here, you never know what you are going to find,” he said. “Those shows are filmed in areas where there is big money. There are still some buried treasures here, but it’s not real big dollars.”
    Spellman’s garage is usually filled with items he has collected. He also has two warehouses in town that are often filled to capacity with items he has obtained. Those warehouses contain many of the larger items he has purchased such as appliances and furniture.
    He also operates a moving company, which often leads to acquiring more items, particularly when the moving involves estates of those who have passed away.
    “Sometimes people want to get rid of stuff in a hurry because they just don’t want to deal with it,” he said. “I used to buy whole estates and take truck loads to Butch Friel and Austin Kinney. It gave me an education to start doing it myself.”
    Locating items to buy has evolved over time, he said.
    “In high school, I was really into hot rods,” Spellman said. “I would buy a car, take the motor out of it and sell the car for parts, making a profit. The next car I would keep the wheels. Eventually, I would get all the items I wanted to build the car that I wanted.”
    Selling items on the Internet through sites such as “Ebay” was big boon for a short time. Today, however, the availability of so many items online has diminished the value of some pieces. Spellman said Ebay became the great equalizer for some as it allowed everyone to sell items to a much wider audience, but not without a few side effects.
    “A few years back, I had oodles of beer lights from my time playing guitar,” he said. “A friend saw the collection and tipped me off about Ebay, but I didn’t even have a computer.”
    Spellman said the sale of items on the Internet slowed in 2001 when supply started to outweigh demand.
    “It used to be that you could post something on Ebay for $10 and people would get into bidding wars and it would sell for $50,” he said. “Then others would see how much items sold for and try to sell the same thing. The next thing you knew, there were 100 similar items and nothing is selling. Stuff that was considered rare was just hard to find. Now, something that is rare truly is rare.”
    His backyard is a miniature vehicle graveyard with shells of a half-dozen vintage cars located around the property. Spellman said he doesn’t have any sentimental attachment to anything he has purchased over the years.
    “I am certainly not a hoarder, but it may look like it,” he said. “My problem is I see value in everything. There are things I love. I love my two hot rods, but for the right amount of money everything can be sold.”
    Catering to people’s childhood memories has proven to be a major moneymaker over the years. A lot of his sales come from customers who see items from their past and simply have to have it.
    “You can make a lot of money selling people their youth or their fantasy,” he said. “People buy an item because their grandparents may have had one. As a kid, I remember things my grandparents had, but couldn’t touch. Now that I’m older, I went and got my own.”
    The market also tends to change without notice. There was a time when he sold a large number of hot rod automobiles and another period were he sold a lot of musical items, particularly guitars. Antiques were also hot for a time.
    The current trend, he said, is people buying used items that they need, not necessarily the items they may dream of having.
    “Just when you think an item is getting really hot, it changes,” he said. “All of a sudden the item is not as valuable as you once thought it was.”