One's trash is someone else's treasure

The last thing this thread needs is to be 'put back on track' :)

pW

PS - I once sold a Krell power amp to an elderly person for less than it was worth. I cut the same kinda deals for other minorities too.

I have an interesting scenario: Let's say that I go to a garage sale in my middle class neighborhood. I see an old painting by some unknown artist that the owners have priced for $5.00, including frame. I think it will look nice in my den so I buy it for their asking price, not even considering "horse-trading" which is normal for garage sales. I take it home and decide to take the painting out and clean the frame of the old dust and crud build-up accumulated over the years from being improperly stored in their attic. While seeing that the backing of the painting is slightly torn, I notice that there is something else behind the painting inside the backing so I carefully take off the backing and find an original Picasso worth one million $$. What do I do? Take the painting back and let the garage sale owners know what they mistakenly sold me, keep it for my personal enjoyment, or maybe auction it off with a prestigious auctioneer to get the million $$ or more that it could bring? Is there an ethical or moral value at stake in this scenario?

I would sell the Picasso and send the money to Gemini.

In defense of Gemini:

The worth of an item can only be measured in the hands of the person holding it. To the elderly gentleman, the TT was only worth the $100.00 he asked for it. He could have offered it to his elderly next door neighbor to whom it may have only been worth $50.00. That's what it's worth would have been. To the person Gemini sold it to, it had a worth of $900.00. Maybe at the time Gemini resold it, he thought it had a worth of $1,500.00 but it was only worth $900.00 to the person who bought it. The worth of any item is only measured by the person who is willing to buy it or to the person holding it for the worth he is willing to part with it for. To say that Gemini should have offered the gentleman a measure of worth more than the gentleman was asking is to impart Gemini's sense of worth of the object to it, not the gentleman's measure. To the elderly gentleman, he was happy to get $100.00, he received the full measure of what he perceived to be its worth. Keep in mind also that this was 1993, well before there was any established mediums to sell used equipment and before there was a sense of established prices for used equipment. The elderly gentleman might have had absolutely no access to market to sell the TT thus it's value was hardly established in any measureable way and it was the beginning of CD's and everyone was dumping their TT's. For all the trouble the gentleman may have had trying to sell it using any other means or markets that were available then, the gentleman was very happy to sell it for the price he received. I think both Gemini and the elderly gentleman made great deals.

Mike

"The worth of an item can only be measured in the hands of the person holding it"

That's the value of the item based on one individuals perception of its worth, NOT fair market value, which is based on a cross-section of the buying public with a specific interest in the item.
The two are very different, let’s not get confused.

Having said all that how did the gentleman arrive at the $100 value for the TT? Is it the buyer who has responsibility for researching fair market value, or the seller? (obviously the seller). Is old age a good reason not to be able to research fair market value, in this instance, no, sorry it isn't. The gentleman was 'aware' enough to be able to make the necessary arrangements to place the advertisement, and would surely have taken one step further to research the items value, had he been so inclined. Maybe the old guy stole it and thought $100 for hot merchandise was a good deal. Who knows what circumstances were in play.

As for the little Picasso story, cute, but a poor analogy for what is going on here.

pW