NEED advice: Brand New to Scrapping--so sell as ITEMS or sell as SCRAP?

I am VERY new to this so...
Cleaning out my deceased parents house and my dad was a huge junk collector. We have 300+ "mayo" jars of hardware, nuts, bolts, nails, Galv nails, roofing nails, brads, ss compression fittings, washers, nuts and the list goes on and on.

We also found a lot of the hex head bolts that range from 3 to 6" long with washers and nuts. They seem to coated in a shiny gold-ish, brass colored coating. They are spotless and are magnetic. We were told that they are Number 1 Steel. I'm not sure what that means and what they sell for.

Are all these hardware jars better to sell as $1 a jar or should we just scrap weight them? My brother and I need some advice (we've already scrapped the bigger items like plumbing related items and pipes…)



Thanks Steve

you should be able to get more than scrap value for those. $1 seems too cheap though.

No intro? Not good to join a site like this and right out of the gate start wanting your work done for you without an intro. Some searches on this site would answer your questions for you.

We thought $1 a jar was very cheap but had low balls want all the jars for 30c each. Thats when thought it might be worth just scrapping the stuff. I guess we were wondering what classification they would be in to see if it was worth considering to scrap… or someone that experienced the same thing...

Originally Posted by Mechanic688

You have to figure that scrap value has dropped quite a bit, it's running from .05 a lb to around .09 a lb. Might be better off to grab the offer and move them. Don't trip over a dollar to pick up a dime.

I second this advice. Sell it and move on.

Stuff like that I try a listing on CL for a week or two if you have the time. 30 cents a jar for the unsorted hardware is not too bad ask a buck and see if you can get 50 cents a jar for the whole lot- better than scrap and quick money if you can get it.
Good luck

The 'goldy/brassy' look on the bolts is zinc passivated bolts.
They Zinc plate the bolts, then put them in a boiling solution of sodium.dichromate.
Not sure why actually, I will google it later.

But yeah, sell the bolts, get the ca$h.

Thats what we did, we put them on CL. I put a 300 jars for $150 which is more than fair. Try to buy this stuff at a hardware store and see what you'll pay… ya know? We got a few bites but they wanted it all for nothing. One guy bought 50 jars but we still have the 300+ left.