I like to go big when buying lids, especially now.
2 Things.
1.) If you buy a lot of lids, take them out of the boxes and inspect each and everyone of them for scratches on the inside surface and for bubble craters in the seal compound/uneven sealing compound.
I had a glut of brand new ball brand lids I took out to repackage them (More on that further down) and use them in my stock rotation. I've had jars that didn't seal. Turned out the sealing coumpound had air bubble craters breaking the seal.
So went through each and every lid I bought and found roughly 120 questionable lids! I bought them in 2016/2017 and needless to say the receipt is long gone in some
land fill. I gave them away to someone and warned them not to use them for
food preservation. That's money down the drain for 1, for 2 had I needed those lids in an emergency or a supply disruption I would have been screwed.
So check your lids! Take all the bad and questionable ones, consolidate them and take em back for an exchange.
2.) Long term/short term storage. I couldn't find any solid information on life expectancy in storage, but what little I found is 5 years MAX. After that the risk of the sealing compound drying out increases.
I've tried a few methods and finally settled on one method to store my lids. Forget vacuum sealing them in mylar or anything else because it compresses the lids together something terrible.
I would love to have zero oxygen storage, but without vacuum.
My solution?
This only applies to regular mouth lids (Sorry wide mouth lid lovers). Buy the 24 oz Ball jars, unbox your lids, inspect and store them in the new jars. I suppose you could put the lids in and do a nitrogen flush. But I haven't gotten ahold of any nitrogen.
I think it's great way to store and protect lids for short and long term storage. I mean, less face it. There's never enough lids! Lol