Posted By:
Rhett YeakleyI consider myself a pretty honest guy, but I think he reality of the matter is that I would give the guy everything I had in my pocket, and take the cards. I agree with Hal in this situation, HE named the price, not me. He would probably be ecstatic to get 4K instead of the 3K he was looking for. And I also agree, that if you tell the guy, "I want to pay you $30K instead", he would probably get pretty suspicious, and you could end up with nothing. For all we know the guy could have bought them off an old lady an hour earlier for $300, and is looking to make a tidy profit.
True life scenario... About a year ago I was at a show and a dealer (which had pretty moderate to high prices), had a stack of oddball cards, upon looking through them, I found a very rare card with a value over $1500. I asked the guy how much he wanted for the item, and he looked at it for a while, and said $125. I bought that card, and even purchased some of his other stuff that was probably a little overpriced beacause I knew I was getting a steal from the guy, I guess that was my way of saying thanks. But was I wrong in doing this? I personally don't think I did. It isn't my fault the guy didn't realize what he had, and he was a card dealer, and probably should have known better. Was I under some obligation to tell the dealer exactly what he had, and then help him consign it to an auction house?
I'm just playing devils advocate here, but it is much easier to say "I would do the right thing" if the situation is completely hypothetical. I do like the suggestion of finding the guy later and giving him something else, after all's said and done. But that is assuming you can ever find the guy again.
-Rhett