EddyR

oldlugs I reread your post twice and it looks like in the beginning you bought out a few guys but that last haul you were paid to clean out the place and ended taking it home. I have been to places like your's quite a few times. Before I was a bike flipper. I was in flipping audio equipment and before that did jukebox amp restoration. I have been retired for 20 years so I got into these hobbies as a way to make money.. Let me start with the Jukeboxes. A friend and I did restorations and a guy invites us over to pick up a couple amps to work on. He had a huge barn with hundreds of non working jukeboxes. plus other buildings with cars and audio equipment.. He was out of control with his vast collection. When I moved to N Carolina in 2002 I started flipping audio equipment and went to several guys places to buy equipment and they had thousands of pieces of audio equipment. One guy had 2000 speakers. Those markets dried up and I started flipping road bikes as a way to find bikes for my self,I did 700+. I never had over 18 bikes at any one time as I kept them moving but I did collect a lot of parts.. When I sold my house two years ago I took all the parts to the co/op. I also had a large model airplane collection and I sold and gave it all away.
All these people that I have mentioned all said the same thing" I plan on selling it on ebay" Hire yourself a person to run a full time E/bay store.
oldlugs lets face it you are out of control unless you have a way to get rid of it all in a few months -year
Note On a model airplane forum I visit there was a guy on there just as yourself asking the same question. How do I get red of hundreds of model engines and hundreds of kits. He also did a few on ebay but got tired of it. At one time I did ebay but got tired of it as it was becoming a fulltime job.
Hope the best for you as it seems to be dragging you down.
Ed

vintagebicycle

I can't speak for others who do large buy outs and clean outs but for me, having certain vintage parts on hand lets me do what I do.
I don't sell parts, I use them to repair or rebuild these old bikes. Most are for my own use, but I do sell a few from time to time.
The parts I find that I can't use or don't want get sold or traded for those I can use.

A few big buys and its not hard to accumulate a large inventory, I basically have a 40ft trailer full of parts right now that I don't intend to sell.
I've got maybe a few hundred items that I would sell because those bikes don't interest me.
I avoid derailleur bikes and pretty much anything newer than around 1980-82 or so.

I only take on lots that are free or nearly free. Putting any money out into old bikes won't likely ever return a profit these days. There's a few items that
bring good money but most will just sit.

The best storage I found has been older Steelmaster parts drawer cabinets, each cabinet has 30 drawers. I've got about a dozen of them in my basement where I keep my new old stock parts. Anytime I find another cabinet for cheap I buy it. Each one I have needed to be stripped and repainted. Its not much harder than repainting an old file cabinet. Lateral filing cabinets also make good parts cabinets, they hold a ton of weight and give good access to what's inside.

I gave up on eBay a long time ago, between the fees and the scammers its not worth my trouble. I'd rather sell less and still have my stuff than to lose it to a thief or end up paying just to ship it out and right back when a buyer decides to change their mind. I'll consider eBay again when eBay starts protecting sellers like they protect buyers.

bikemike73 

Would love to see some pics of this collection.

It sounds like you have every part you'll ever need.....of course that's not true. But you could use to swap for what you need.

Good Luck and try to get some help.

I am overwhelmed and I am not even there to assist....Wish I could be.....

It would be " fun".....really