Real life MMD: My £1 charity shop vase is worth £750 — should I split the profit?

dirtmother

Whatever she feels like doing. Yes, it would certainly be a nice gesture to give a donation out of her profits, or even to donate all her profits but unless she is generally a rather self-interested ungenerous person anyway, I wouldn't think any worse of her if she didn't. Of course there's no question of not being able to 'afford' to do so since it is a windfall, but she may have other worthwhile things to spend the money on/save it towards.

You say the family are regular customers of charity shops - they don't work if people don't buy stuff. It doesn't sound as though she bought the vase with a strong hunch of its value that the shop had no idea of or that she haggled down to the price she paid. You say she cleaned it up and then realised it was not just a pretty vase. She has also gone to the trouble of getting an opinion on it. (And presumably she's put some time in acquiring the knowledge that enabled her to realise the vase was potentially (hasn't sold yet!) valuable.

What I would not expect from her would be a lot of sneering or gloating about charities/charity shops/general resistance to donating to any charity in the future.

tgroom57

No, she shouldn't go back and top-up the amount she paid for this item. Allow for some serendipity !

Hopefully more people will be encouraged to browse charity shops. Your daughter made the decision to buy- countless others- including the staff in the charity shop- chose to pass on this item. Maybe the person who would have recognised its value was on holiday.

From being labelled a lonesome, unloved vase I am sure the item (and previous owner) is pleased to bring good luck to someone.

janiebquick

moggymutt wrote: »

I agree with your second statement (oh to live in a world where people had consciences), but not your first. Where on earth has that idea come from- possibly the large national charities that afford to pay staff. We search through ebay, but all of us are sadly very busy poeople. (Even though retired , my life is looking after 40 cats, working in the charity shop, growing plants for the shop, and trying to fit that in around very dominating bipolar)

In our local cat rescue shop we are all total volunteers, not paid, luckily 2 have a little experience in that area. We are TOTALLY devastated when we find we have made a big mistake, knowing just how much our small, local charity could have benefited from the money. I get haunted by knowing how many cats and kittens die each year anyway, and would just see my failure to have realised its value as me really letting down the cats.

Even If they didn't like cats, I would hope that anyone with an ounce of decency would give the money to a human charity. If I was faced with someone saying they'd made £100's on a buy from us, but didn't like cats, I'd ask them to give to Ty Hafan (children's hospice)

Mind you, in my nice imaginary world, where paople all have consciences, no cats would be getting dumped, and everyone would get their cats neutered. Perhaps one day that imaginary world will be achieved. (World peace? , one day, please?)

IF someone did come in and give us half the profits we would be ecstatic, so grateful, because as well as our charity not losing out, it would partly restore our faith in human nature. I'd just want to hug the person to pieces!

(We have on occassion, had something from our shelves brought over to us by a potential customer, who has been kind enough to point out that something we've priced for say £1, is actually worth say £20, and we have been really grateful)

Quite genuinely, if I bought something that I could sell on at huge profit I would give half to the charity it came from, and half for the charity I volunteer for. It' one thing getting a bargain from a charity shop- we hope all of our customers are getting bargains, but the first post is about volunteers making a genuine mistake.

The local hospice runs eight charity shops and the volunteers all attend regular training on recognising antiques. I believe most of the big ones do this as well.

DustD

scrimperdave, pennypincheruk and liltinker are on the money here. Good luck to her for finding an item of such value, its the fault of the charity shop for missing it and there should be no moral dilemma about whether or not any profit should be passed back to the shop. As scrimperdave suggested, everyones a winner anyway.

In my experience, many shops have ties to local dealers who get first dibs or provide advice on any new stock believed to have value. Its a miracle in this day and age that something like this slipped through the net.

Charity shops have gotten greedy in recent years. I used to regulary visit them as there was a fair chance of finding something of value. Nowadays, they are not happy with a pound here and there and think people are prepared to pay 'market rates' for everything, considering they got it all free in the first place!

Sadly as a result I no longer bother and you have to wonder if their profits are down as a result of these practices.

Charity begins at home.

onesixfive

It sounds like she unknowingly picked it up, then later found it to be valuable.
The charity shop staff should be trained to spot such items.
If she regularly shops there then she's probably already donated some of the value.
I too regularly shop & spend in charity shops - I dont trawl them looking for suspected valuable finds.
Several years ago I picked up some ornaments for £20 which later turned out to be valuable (£500). I simply made an extra anonymous donation (£50).
I still regularly shop there many years later so they still get monies from me for other non-valuable sales (clothes/books etc).

Augustus_the_Strong

See how much it sells for, and then give the charity a generous donation. No need to anguish about it, just be reasonable.

jools0001

The fact the OP even asks the question suggests they have a conscience.

So in that case I think it depends on how much they need the money.

The whole point of charities is they help those who need help. If you're in the "need (financial) help" category, my instinct would be that keeping the money is fine.

If the £750 (or whatever it fetches) is going to solve some real pressing problems for you (overdue gas bill, kids need shoes, whatever) then I don't think anyone would begrudge you it. If it was me in that situation, I hope I'd do something like make a note in my diary in five years' time to donate some cash to the charity if I could afford it then.

If you can comfortably afford to do without the money (e.g. you'd be spending it on something you don't really need), then I think you should donate a sizeable chunk of it.

But it's really up to you. Don't do it out of guilt or obligation, do it because you want to help the charity and you think it's the right thing to do, if you do.

BNT

Charitable donations are voluntary. It is clear from the previous posts that there is no 'right' answer (unlike some of the recent MMDs). Your daughter should do what she is comfortable with and shouldn't worry too much about what other people think. Her circumstances may well be different from ours.

martinbsp

Surely the answer is simple. If you support the charity and want to make a donation of any amount then do so. If you don't then don't. I would feel under no obligation to split the money.

hilstep2000

I volunteer in a charity shop. My boss (who gets paid by the charity) said if someone buys something and then sells it on via Ebay or auction, they are entitled to do that. After they have bought it from us, it's theirs not ours, so we have no say what they do with it.