Is there a per-pound price for bulk fasteners?

I'd like to start this by saying that I am NOT looking for the price I will get by bringing these to the scrap yard and getting their price to BUY fasteners. Looking for more of a retail price that end users would pay to BUY them.

We have lots of brass, stainless steel and phosphor bronze screws, nuts and bolts from my dad's shop. Some of them still in the original boxes. Most of them made by Albany Products.

Is there a price for these in bulk by the pound?

Steve

Post some pics of what you've got, maybe someone here will make an offer.

SteveM said:

I'd like to start this by saying that I am NOT looking for the price I will get by bringing these to the scrap yard and getting their price to BUY fasteners. Looking for more of a retail price that end users would pay to BUY them.

We have lots of brass, stainless steel and phosphor bronze screws, nuts and bolts from my dad's shop. Some of them still in the original boxes. Most of them made by Albany Products.

Is there a price for these in bulk by the pound?

Steve

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Places like Habitat ReStore sell fasteners for $2-3 a pound. Not so good a deal for the buyer of large bolts. Terrific deal for 1000's of 0-80 brass or stainless screws.

Sadly surplus fasteners don't go for much, in part because of the hassle. If you're going to be in a taxed situation, your best bet might be to donate them and take a tax deduction for their original cost?

Tractor Supply sells fasteners by the pound.

CalG said:

Tractor Supply sells fasteners by the pound.

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Orschlein does as well, with Gr 2, Gr 5, Gr 8, and metric 8.8 pricing. China, of course.

Hemly's is $1.50 a pound but not much grade 8.

You would need to seek out a place like Hemly's
to sell to, and most retail places need to mark up 100%.

yep. TS is buy the pound . grade 3,5,8 $2.50,$3.50,$4.50 respectfully. tax included.
unc-coarse only- of course- HHCS , and 1/4- to 1" . if you need 3/8-24 SHCS , NO DICE .

Suggest determining how many fit in a flat rate box then sell by the pound.

May get better money over on the hobby site as there may be better demand for a "hardware kit".



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You might consider posting them for sale here.

About 8 years back someone bought a die shop and put all the fasteners and pins for sale by the pound here on PM. By chance my closest fastener supplier raised their prices a bunch and I was a bit annoyed. So I purchased about 350 lbs of fasteners. Thank goodness for USPS flat rate shipping boxes!

tnmgcarbide said:

yep. TS is buy the pound . grade 3,5,8 $2.50,$3.50,$4.50 respectfully. tax included.
unc-coarse only- of course- HHCS , and 1/4- to 1" . if you need 3/8-24 SHCS , NO DICE .

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I was happy to find my local TS had 3/8x16 SHCP , they had fairly long ones. Not bulk, Hillman , SS and Black, didn’t look for fine thread


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Folks, he has brass, phosphor bronze, and SS hardware. The price that Tractor Supply has on their Grade 2, 5, & 8 zinc/cad plated hardware doesn't tell him much of anything other than the fact that he should be able to get more than that for it.

OP, I don't know of any places that sell that type of hardware by the pound but if you're looking for a good way to dispose of it this is what I would do. Take a few random samples, small sizes, medium sizes, large sizes of each. Figure out how many are in a pound. Search around for prices and correlate the price per box/unit to the price per pounds. IE, say a box of 1/4-20 X 1 phosphor bronze SHCS have 210/lb, and they're $34 for a box of 100. You can easily figure out that you have 2.1 boxes per pound so those are selling for $71.40/lb. Do that with a few other sizes, you will find that small sizes are going to be higher/lb and large sizes less/lb. You don't have to price every size you have, you're just trying to find out what the spectrum of prices is. Now, realize that 99% of people looking at and buying your used hardware that may not be in perfect condition, may not be sorted well, and may not actually be what you think it is (does it have certs?) aren't paying retail price. If they were paying retail price they would buy it retail from their supplier. You have to incentivize them to buy your "lesser product" with an attractive price. I think anything over 50% of retail is too much. If you have a lot and want to move it fast you may have to set it down to 25% of retail (or possibly lower). If you don't mind sitting on it and slowly selling little by little on ebay etc then 50% or even a bit higher may not be unreasonable.

Sincerely, a guy that really doesn't want any of your hardware (I have no incentive to get you to price it low).

CountryBoy19 said:

Now, realize that 99% of people looking at and buying your used hardware that may not be in perfect condition, may not be sorted well, and may not actually be what you think it is (does it have certs?) aren't paying retail price.

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Actually, almost all of it is unused NOS and the majority of it is sorted and a lot of it is in the original boxes (made by Albany Products), so it's not like a buyer needs to figure in his time to go thru every last piece sorting them.

I did see boxes of phosphor bronze screws comparable to some that I have (boxes of 100) retailing for $100/box.

CountryBoy19 said:

Sincerely, a guy that really doesn't want any of your hardware (I have no incentive to get you to price it low).

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Thanks for your input.

Steve

Get yourself a "Impulse sealer" (about $40) some plastic bags, a website.

And when you sell all you have....go out and buy some more !

McMaster be dammed.....

Might try to get a hold of this guy,
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...-them-204613/?highlight=Lag+carriage+shipping He is in the surplus hardware business.

true temper said:

Might try to get a hold of this guy,
http://www.practicalmachinist.com/v...-them-204613/?highlight=Lag+carriage+shipping He is in the surplus hardware business.

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Talked to him already on a prior project. He wanted me to drag a couple hundred pounds of fasteners half way across the country for him to give me the scrap metal price I could have gotten from the local scrap yard, but thanks for keeping an eye out!

Steve

SteveM said:

Actually, almost all of it is unused NOS and the majority of it is sorted and a lot of it is in the original boxes (made by Albany Products), so it's not like a buyer needs to figure in his time to go thru every last piece sorting them.

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I didn't so much mean that your hardware was actually used. It's just that a buyer's perspective is that unless it's in a brand-new, shiny box, with a retail price attached, it's treated as used. It's the unfortunate nature of that sort of thing. I can always use hardware, and I will gladly pay 50% of retail for hardware that is NOS, but unless it has changed (manufacturer, quality, etc) the NOS has no additional value above retail so it has to be priced more in-line with used.

Unfortunately, the price premium comes in the cataloging/listing/selling part, not the physical value of the hardware itself. If you want to get much more than scrap price you'll have to catalog and list it. Ebay, here, other forums/etc doesn't make a difference it will all take the same amount of effort. The more effort you put in, the higher you can expect to get.

IE, you can list 40 lb lots of size-x to size-y brass hardware shipped in MFRB, and I will know I'm going to get hardware in that size, but am I going to get all nuts? Or a disproportionate amount of nuts to bolts? I'm taking a risk, so I'm not paying much for a lot listed like that. OTOH, you can list qty 100 size-x, bolts, nuts, and washers, qty 250 size-y bolts & nuts, qty 200 size-y washers, etc and I know exactly what I'm getting so if I like it or need it, I'll be willing to pay more for it.

It may be beneficial to list out a lot of the stuff in complete boxes because it's easy to list qty's and then bulk-lot the partial boxes & misc. in size-groups. Or come up with a price/lb and list out the sizes etc, people can make requests, and you can weigh it out and give them a total.

CountryBoy19 said:

It may be beneficial to list out a lot of the stuff in complete boxes because it's easy to list qty's and then bulk-lot the partial boxes & misc. in size-groups. Or come up with a price/lb and list out the sizes etc, people can make requests, and you can weigh it out and give them a total.

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I understand that that would be the optimal route, but I have a day job, a family and several hobbies, and no physical room to be able to do that. I could have 200 or more different sizes (no, that is NOT an exaggeration - I have maybe 20-30 sizes in just phosphor bronze, and phosphor bronze is just a small percentage of the total).

Steve

SteveM said:

I understand that that would be the optimal route, but I have a day job, a family and several hobbies, and no physical room to be able to do that. I could have 200 or more different sizes (no, that is NOT an exaggeration - I have maybe 20-30 sizes in just phosphor bronze, and phosphor bronze is just a small percentage of the total).

Steve

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Got a kid old enough to do interwebs stuff? Put him or her to work listing on ebay.

Failing that, is there anyone around you offering an ebay sales service for a price?

It may well have been NASA grade stuff at NASA prices when new, but if you want to get anything out of it beyond scrap, you are going to have to put more than just a little time in to it, else you are likely best served by using it in the next batch of concrete you might need.

I have watched entire fighter aircraft get sold for 6 cents a pound, as well as entire wings for a C130 Hercules. Sadly, what it sold for new, only really matters if you can find someone that needs that particular item. Thus the need for lists and some flexibility.

SteveM said:

I understand that that would be the optimal route, but I have a day job, a family and several hobbies, and no physical room to be able to do that. I could have 200 or more different sizes (no, that is NOT an exaggeration - I have maybe 20-30 sizes in just phosphor bronze, and phosphor bronze is just a small percentage of the total).

Steve

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That's the whole problem. I've come across a lot of things that I could have made a decent buck off of, if I wanted to take the hours to sort, catalog, and list all of them.
Then, of course, you have to check on your listings every day, answer questions, process the orders, pack them, print shipping labels, arrange pick-up/drop them off, etc, etc...... And, even then, if they're not offering a substantial discount, most people will just buy them new from their distributor anyways. You're never going to get close to retail out of them, especially when you factor in your time.
If you're not willing to deal with that, you would probably be best off trying to sell them as a lot to someone who is. Put them up on eBay with a high price and the "make an offer" option, and do some haggling. Or, as someone else said, post some pics here and see what kind of offers you get.
Just my $.02.

ja762 said:

That's the whole problem. I've come across a lot of things that I could have made a decent buck off of, if I wanted to take the hours to sort, catalog, and list all of them.
Then, of course, you have to check on your listings every day, answer questions, process the orders, pack them, print shipping labels, arrange pick-up/drop them off, etc, etc...... And, even then, if they're not offering a substantial discount, most people will just buy them new from their distributor anyways. You're never going to get close to retail out of them, especially when you factor in your time.
If you're not willing to deal with that, you would probably be best off trying to sell them as a lot to someone who is. Put them up on eBay with a high price and the "make an offer" option, and do some haggling. Or, as someone else said, post some pics here and see what kind of offers you get.
Just my $.02.

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I fully understand that I'm not going to get retail. I can get the scrap price for stainless by bringing them to the scrap yard. I'm trying to find where that ground in the middle is that I can either sell the lot by the pound to one person or maybe fill flat rate boxes until they are full and price them by the pound.

Might have to either have some semblance of commonality, like all of them are 1/4-20's, or just a wide assortment of NTA.

Steve