The Southington Library scanned and uploaded to a PDF file all issues of the Southington Observer newspaper - the weekly newspaper in town. Here is the article about AMES closing. The article starts on Page 1 and Continues on Page 6.
http://southingtonlibrary.org/PDFFiles/newspapers/2002/08_23_2002.pdf
Interesting that they continued the 55 Gold program throughout the liquidation.
The liquidator would have had to agree to that.
Although I suppose it makes sense - if these customers were already willing to come to the store for a relatively small 10% off discount, they would probably be likely to buy stuff when the discounts were on the smaller side (thus more profit for the liquidator)? Perhaps they would also be more willing to take the "leftovers" towards the end if they thought it was a good deal?
So not wanting to alienate these "good customers" making it harder to clear out the stores.
Liquidators are out to make as much money from the GOB sale as they can.
They shelled out cash up-front for the inventory (granted at greatly reduced prices).
I have seen liquidators actually mark the merchandise UP when taking over, only to
start the 10, 20, 50% markdowns from that inflated starting point.