Sell or Ship Test Strips from Maine — Find a Buyer

Why Maine cupboards look like this

Devices in this field are replaced far more often than the people using them change habits. A sensor system gets superseded, a pump is upgraded, a meter is switched because insurance moved to a different brand — and the old supplies stay in the cupboard because throwing away something that cost money feels wrong.

Over ten or fifteen years that produces a genuine archaeology of a condition, layered by generation. In the oldest state in the country this is the normal case rather than the unusual one, and it is why a Maine clear-out often produces more than the family expected.

It also means the sorting is worth doing properly rather than by eye. The most valuable things in the pile are frequently not the ones that look newest.

Dexcom: check the generation on every box

This is the check worth making before you touch anything else, because it is the one that decides which parts of a Dexcom pile are worth sending.

Sealed Dexcom G7 sensors and receivers are bought, 10-day and 15-day. We don't buy Dexcom G6 right now, so read the box rather than assuming.

The boxes are clearly marked with the generation, and the G7 packaging is noticeably smaller than the older system's because the sensor is a single unit rather than two pieces. If you have a pile of Dexcom boxes and you separate nothing else, separate these.

Omnipod: all three pod generations count, controllers do not

Omnipod pods qualify in all three forms — Omnipod 5, DASH and Classic — which is unusual, because most product lines lose value the moment they are superseded. Here the older generations still have a market.

Pods, though, not controllers. The handheld controller or PDM that came with the system is not something we buy, so an intact boxed set is valued on the pods inside it rather than as a kit.

Matching strips to meters, and why the count on the box matters

Strips are meter-specific, and a decade of switching leaves boxes that match nothing currently in the house. That does not reduce their value — the buyer is not matching them to your relative's meter, but to someone else's.

The brands that qualify are FreeStyle Lite, Contour Next in its various versions, Accu-Chek Guide, Aviva and SmartView. If the name on the box is not on that list it is worth a phone call rather than an assumption.

Check the count printed on each box before you decide a pile is not worth bothering with. A 100-count box is worth meaningfully more than two 50-count boxes of the same brand, so two apparently similar stacks can be worth quite different amounts.

FreeStyle Libre sensors carry one extra condition: US retail versions only. Anything bought outside the country cannot be resold here regardless of condition.

What disqualifies a box whatever it is

The seal, first. Factory-sealed and unopened, in original packaging. An opened box cannot be sold at any price, because nobody downstream can verify how it was handled or stored. In a deep cupboard there will be several boxes someone started and abandoned, and those are the ones to set aside immediately.

Then the source. Supplies obtained through a government-covered program cannot be resold. In a state where nearly a quarter of residents are 65 or over this is worth establishing early, and the pharmacy that filled the prescriptions can usually confirm it. A pharmacy label with a name on it, by contrast, changes nothing and does not need removing.

Maine is unusually even, which is why nobody buys here

11.2% of Maine adults have diagnosed diabetes, slightly below the national rate of 12.1%. What is striking is how little that varies across the state: Augusta reads 13.2% and Portland 8.3%, a spread of 4.9 points, where plenty of states run to eight, ten or eleven.

Lewiston at 12.9% and Auburn at 12.2% sit above the state figure, with Bangor at 11.0% and Sanford at 11.1% close to it, and South Portland, Westbrook and Saco clustered in the eights and nines.

That evenness, spread across 426 ZIP codes and 1,404,172 people, is precisely why no in-person buyer operates in Maine and probably never will. In-person buying needs a dense concentration to be worth the driving, and Maine does not have one.

Posting it, once you know what you have

There is no buyer listed anywhere in Maine, so this goes by post. The label is prepaid and costs you nothing from any address in the state, including the ones where the nearest sorting office is a drive.

One call with the brands, the generations and rough counts is enough to get a figure — you do not need a written inventory, and mixed lots are quoted as a single lot rather than item by item. Ten or more boxes generally earns a better per-box rate, which is often the case after a clear-out of this kind.

Get the figure before the parcel leaves, photograph the sealed boxes with the lot numbers visible, and keep those photographs until payment lands. Do not open a box to photograph what is inside it; opening it is what destroys the value.

Payment follows the day after the parcel is received. An accurate description at the start is in your interest.