I'd be in the same boat as Jack as I have a hard time letting things go once I decide that I like them.   What you are doing is providing a good service.  Most people would have no idea how to deal with the estate of a certified gun crank.

Dave
any chinese cleavers , keep me in mind
chuck

If I counted right, I have 146 unidentified bayonets.  Some with scabbards.  I did pick out the better and more distinctive bayonets and value them individually.  The rest I just counted and bought at a set price.   

I have no clue how to identify a rolling block one from any of the others.  It will be a piece by piece puzzle solving task to sell them.  I did identify a trapdoor bayonet with scabbard among them.  Most of them are WW1 and 2 german/polish/italian.

Another estate came to me yesterday, and one today.  Both families dealing with a loved ones lifelong hobby.  Not sure why they're all piling up at the moment.  I bought both, to help out the families, but was sure tempted to tell them to take it to the dump instead!  I'm getting a lot of referalls, as the only guy that will clean it all up and pay a decent amount.

marlinguy wrote on Nov 4^th, 2026 at 11:13am:


The last 3 have come from within 150 miles.  Had another one text a list to me today, but they want 125% of book value for the guns, and they're mundane.  Another from eastern Idaho talking to me tomorrow.  Been a busy week.

Two days makes a lot of difference.  I have all the stuff from the 3 estates sorted, boxed, and stored.  I made a pile of low end stuff in the driveway today and sold it to a lady for $20 to have a yard sale with.  Piled all the reproduction swords and knives and sword canes up and sold as a lot for $200.  Threw a bunch of corroded or low end brass in the scrap buckets.  Put a few big awkward items on marketplace cheap and had them go away.  Consigned a few of the common guns at a local shop, and sold 3 already.  

My method that works for me is "sell from the bottom up".   I sort, and throw all the trash away.  Pile the not worth selling up, and sell it cheap as a lot.  Then, systematically sort and store the good items by how I intend to sell them.  And, sell the poorest stuff first, and the best stuff last.   

My system is opposite most sellers.  They sell high end stuff first to get their capital investment back.  They end up storing the worst stuff.  I do the opposite, there's more and more incentive to sell as I go.

I'm through that part of the process, now can just systematically pull things out of the storage system and sell.  

Kind of like butchering the elephant.  Once the entrails, skin, ears, feet, tail and bones are discarded, and the rest is cut and wrapped and in the freezer, it looks a lot more possible to eat it.

I'm actually not quite caught up; I put between 65 and 70 ammo boxes full of ammunition into storage without sorting them.  But, if I can free up about 500 square feet of garage space, put up tables and sorting bins, I can make pretty short work of those.  Maybe 2 days.  I'm going to put that off for a bit.  Winter work.