Disposed of used spades in the beginning (4)
I believe the answer is:
sold
'disposed of' is the definition.
(I've seen this before)
'used spades in the beginning' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'used' could be 'old' (similar in meaning) and 'old' is present in the answer.
'spades' could be 's' (abbreviation in card games) and 's' is present in the answer.
This accounts for all the letters.
This may be the basis of clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for sold that I've seen before include "Disposed of for money" , "Vended" , "Betrayed for money" , "Disposed of to a purchaser" , "Pushed" .)