I'm going to disagree with most of the posters so far (although I just read that Leon is doing the same).
Whenever faced with a tough decision, I ask myself what would I teach my young children to do in a similar situation. In this case, the decision suddenly becomes easy. The bat has meaning, perhaps even deep meaning, to the collector, but has an even more powerful emotional tie to the family. The collector will in the long run be far richer (and I don't mean financially) by seeing to it that the bat gets to the family.
Here's one more criteria you can use -- something I picked up from one of my favorite authors years ago and has served me well over the years. Whenever faced with a tough decision, invariably the tougher choice is the right choice.
In this case the easiest thing to do would be to keep the bat and forget about it -- the tougher choice for the collector is giving up the bat, but it's the right choice.
Greg
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