You don't need to work on the saws, just be realistic about what they're worth, as they are. With such a large number of saws, you can't assess them one by one.... which is how you'd normally go about buying saws. You've got to take a rough inventory on paper, and tick a box for each saw based on a few seconds visual assesment - complete and running, complete and unknown, or incomplete. You could sort the whole thing out in a few hours. Try to pull the complete saws over, if they start they're runners. If they don't then assume they're not. Many of those saws may indeed be runners and need a bit of sorting, but if you're not interested in getting them going then you've got to assume you're going to get 'non runner' money for them.
you want a sheet with columns like this
model | visual condition | running | sell price | buy price
066 | rough | no | 250 | 100
021 | clean | yes | 150 | 70
028 | fair | parts | 50 | 20
You get the idea. The guy probably wants to just flip the lot, and can't face up to doing it one by one which would make him a lot more money. Very few people would have the cash to purchase a collection like this, so you stand to do quite well out of it and get a few nice items yourself at no cost but you need to be brutal, know your saws, and don't offer much. Make your offer based on the lot, not one by one. You don't want him seeing any of that information. As a general rule I wouldn't be buying saws at any more than 50c on the dollar for what I thought I could sell them for, and even then I'd be estimating low on what I thought I could sell them for. You'll end up making more money on the low end saws which might surprise you. You can buy them for cheap, and double the price and sell them fast because the money involved isn't much, but it adds up quick. Takes a lot more time to send a higher value saw, and buyers are going to be fussier. Even consider purchasing all 70% of the collection, all the low end stuff, for very little money, say, $30~$50/saw for runners, and leaving the high ticket stuff behind. You could clear all those low priced saws in a week no worries.
Shaun