400 to 500 jar lot purchase

[Mikyfin]

So I was talking to a guy I have known for a few years and long story short he had bought an old farmhouse last year and has been cleaning it out slowly. During talk somehow it came up about me collecting things and I told him I am all about Mason jars and bottles. He says that when he got into the basement there were hundreds of jars and bottles and I guess he has them still just sitting there. I am going to look at the "collection" in the beginning of the week and I guess never have I walked into something like this I was looking for some advice on what I might do. Now I am not all ramped up thinking its a room full of cobalt blue Milville atmospheric jars. It probably a ton of Commons and a few good ones but who knows what might be there. Any thoughts or advice are welcomed and I will post photos of what I walk into. Thank you.
Mike.

 

[nhpharm]

I always have to remind myself that I don't have an easy way of getting rid of such volume. As you know, most fruit jars don't have enough value to be worth shipping so are not viable to sell on eBay. I'd suggest picking out the key jars, offering a fair price for them, then putting your friend in touch with a dealer that can easily handle the remaining volume in a shop (if they are at least OK jars). If it is a bunch of clear Atlas EZ-Seals, then maybe he can give them to someone who still cans.

 

[deenodean]

There mite or mite not be any good jars in that lot. Take pics and post them., OR
If you have a Facebook Messagener account and have a cell smart phone you can instantly message and send pictures worldwide and get an immediate response. I have such an account if interested.

 

[jarsnstuff]

Several years ago I purchased two separate such lots. If you're lucky enough to purchase EMPTY jars, well more power to you! Anyway, these were all full of antique fruit. I paid an up-front price for all the jars, whether I ended up taking them all or not. Jars are several deep on all of the shelves, so you pretty much have to look through everything anyway. In each load, I would take them home, empty them out (don't worry its not too disgusting, antique fruit does not smell bad) and wash them up. I buried a lot of what I emptied out in my garden, worked pretty well. The collectible jars I sold at bottle shows and on eBay. The rest of them I sold locally as canning jars for a couple of bucks a dozen. I think you could sell them on Craigslist easy enough, probably get $3 or more a dozen depending on how popular home canning is in your area. There are also a couple of Facebook jar auction groups where fairly common but collectible jars seem to sell quite well. I got scolded for posting the links before, but since Facebook has already been mentioned, maybe it won't upset too many folks. https://www.facebook.com/groups/270431379807867/https://www.facebook.com/groups/1582586822026059/

 

[Mikyfin]

Thank you for some in sight on this. The guy did say there was some antique food in some of them. I do have storage for this buy if it goes through. Can't wait to see what's there.
Was talking to my close friend this morning and told him about what I might need help on and he says good when we get done with this we need to go to his house and go into the old family shed and in the crawl space there are a hundred or so jars from his grandmother that his dad had put there. He is 55 yrs old so who knows what's in that stash. Only catch to this one I guess is a porcupine had or is living in the crawl space. This is all so crazy and I guess I need to shut my mouth so I don't end up with even more!