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

mr-tom_2

The charity are merely middle men in this. If we were talking about a house clearance firm rather than a charity, it is unlikely anybody would give it a second thought.

The true loser is the original donor.

All that said, I do suspect that my conscience would trouble me. I think I would use the money for a worthy cause, but it's more likely that this would be doing something specific rather than having the money lost in the coffers, e.g. Buying a piece if equipment that might make a real difference for some local cause, or installing a ram pump in a village in some drought ridden area (not England!) or something like that.

archiebabes

When I used to work in a charity shop we had an (unpaid) expert who would come in once a week and look at the stuff we had had in, he would let us know if we had something valuable.

However a lot of the older staff didn't have a clue about clothing brands. One of them put an Yves St Laurent shirt in the rag bag. I fished it out, put some money in the till and gave it to my mate's boyfriend and he was very pleased.

marich

Only if you want your reward in Heaven ! If your heart says so then do it , but keeping your hand in your pocket is no shame .

SINBAD_2

As ever I find it really hard to understand how mean some people are on this website. Any amount above 1.50 is an unexpected windfall and should be returned to the charity. End of. Yes, sure the person has the legal right to keep the money, but morally, it's black and white.question is: what sort of a person are you?

The other day I realised I'd left my wallet on the Gatwick Express inside the airport! 60 quid inside, all my cards, boarding pass etc. I like to think that the reason I 1) managed to get back to the train (it hadn't left) 2) found my wallet and 3) it had all the above still in it, is the fact that whenever I find peoples' wallets, USBs, cash etc I make a massive effort to return what's not mine.

Cimscate

I probably would give them a load of stuff to sell to ease my conscience but wouldn't worry too much about it. I'm sure loads of stuff on Ebay comes from charity shops so the only difference is the scale of reward! Enjoy your good fortune:T

A.Jones

I wouldn't give them anything. You have done the work, spotting it, identifying the piece, taking it to the auction house, getting valuations. You deserve the profit.

Our local charity shop is awful now. Nearly everything has a price tag way too high. I reckon 50% of the non-clothes items have "A similar one sold on eBay for £X" labels on, and they are rarely true.

You found a gem amongst the crap, keep the money.

tizzicat

I recently donated a large amount of china which came from my mother when she died. I was generally chatting to the staff member and said I didn't know if any of it was worth anything. She said they have an antiques expert in once a week to look at things and if something was worth a lot of money they would contact me, as my details are taken for Gift Aid purposes.

Don't know if that is the norm; maybe I'm lucky to have a charity shop that does this.

stars_bright

I have had quite some dealings with charity shops over the last few years. Firstly my teenaged daughter volunteered in one of the large charity shops on a weekly basis for 2 years. She did not receive any training but was mainly just sorting clothes out. If she had made such a mistake and found out about it she would have been devastated, so if your daughter does decide to share some of the proceeds I would recomend that she gives a donation without saying why - the charity shop would be delighted and there would be no recriminations on the staff.
Secondly, we had to clear my deceased fathers house and a lot of stuff went to the charity shop. A number of items could have been quite valuable but at the time I wasn't up to trying to get stuff valued etc and just took it all. I am aware that someone may have got a very good bargain but think if someone found what they wanted and appreciate it then good luck to them. The charity shop has our details as we gave them for gift-aid purchases but I would not expect them to contact us if they did discover something was very valuable. I wouldn't really want them to, I would rather they kept any extra bonus.
So my feeling is that your daughter bought the item because she liked it, why not enjoy it? If she decided to sell it then thats because she needs the money. I personally would give some donation to a charityof her choice but only as much as she can comfortably afford, even just £5 would be a boost for the charity

tanit

It didnt cost the charity shop anything to buy it so I would not feel obliged to give them any of the cash.
I give lots of items to my local charity shop over the past 20 years so feel they make a good profit from me and other peoples donations.

Vobo

I think I am right in saying that Charity Shops employ experts to sift through the donated items to check if they are worth anything. In this case, I would be quite happy to keep the profit that I have made on the item. The Charity Shop should have done their homework a bit better. I, too support Charity Shops and always donate items to them for re-sale.