If his items were excluded from the auction, how much would that affect the sale price? It seems like his 8-10 pieces would just be a tiny fraction of the collection and wouldn’t matter all that much if you’ve been collecting them for 60 years. If so, leave his pieces out of the lot and just auction off what you collected yourself. I personally would just sell everything together and not worry about it.
I’m a little confused here. I’m not sure where the value of the collections lies - that someone has an entire collection of them, or that they are individually valuable. It seems as though it might be that some of the items are individually valuable, as was seemed to be indicated in the second to last paragraph, but I’m not sure if the traded away item actually would fit as part of the collection or not.
If the value lies in the entire collection of them, and the OP bought or otherwise acquired with his own efforts the vast majority of the items, and the items themselves have little individual value compared to the entire collection, the brother deserves basically nothing. The OP should be able to buy the ownership to those few items for a relatively small amount of money.
If the items have value individually just as much as part of the collection, then it should be easy to just give the brother 50% of the proceeds of the ones that he acquired himself, with 50% being a typical rate for someone to keep custody of and sell something for you.
If the items that the brother aren’t identifiable any more but are known to be integral to the value of the collection, and all that’s known is that 8-10 of them were acquired by the brother and the rest are the OP’s, then I would follow the same logic as the previous item, just prorating the proceeds of the entire collection over just the few items.
OP at very least has to give your brother something for the items that the brother acquired unless the brother explicitly tells OP that OP can have them. Unless he’s giving away his rights like that, OP should follow one of the above formulas to determine what portion of the proceeds are the brother’s.
Thirded.
There is no moral or ethical dilemma here. The collection belongs in its entirety to the OP. His property to dispose of as he wishes. No strings attached.
Agreed but I would offer something to your brother from the proceeds for starting the collection like a really good dinner out, a couple bottles of his favorite wine, etc.
Thanks, LSLGuy, for being in favor of straightforward honesty as distinct from underhanded lying and making the kind of secret that destroys family relationships. I’ve seen that kind of thing among my Japanese in-laws, and it always turns my stomach.
To some of the others, and the OP: need has nothing to do with doing the right thing. The case has been made that your brother gave up all interest in his original part of the collection due to his literal lack of interest in having it returned to him. I agree with that. It’s yours now.
Nevertheless, if I were you, I would say or write something like this: “Dear brother, I’m going to be selling the entire collection of (things), including the ones that you collected 60 years ago, and I’ll be keeping the proceeds. If you don’t want me to sell the ones you collected, tell me now and I’ll return them to you. Otherwise, I will be including them in the sale.”
By the way, OP, you would be far better off forgetting about that one item that your brother traded away that is now so valuable. It was his to trade when it happened, it never belonged to you, and you sound like you’re eating yourself up about it. It sounds, frankly, creepy.
Fourthed. I wouldn’t bother mentioning it, and if it ever came up again, which is unlikely, just say you sold it all, and leave it at that. Sounds like the brother has forgotten about it anyway and the only reminder he would get is from the OP. Sell it and keep the money, and if the brother makes a stink just say you kept the proceeds as compensation for the space it took up at your home for all those years.
I think this is the best answer, assuming you have a good relationship with your brother and want to keep it.
Again, it depends entirely on how you get along with your brother today.
Can we assume there were no knock down, drag out fights when your parents’ estates were settled?
My thoughts are as follows, just a tad on the sneaky side:
Tell your brother you are getting rid of the collection. You are cleaning out the house, getting it ready for sale, or you’re moving to a smaller place.
“Speak now, or forever hold your peace.”
Once you bring money into the conversation, reason and brotherhood often go right out the window, and the green-eyed monster comes in.
The jug of booze or a couple of bottles of wine would be my solution if money is mentioned.
~VOW
That’s a good point; it doesn’t matter what’s right or fair. When money is involved, especially with close family, reason goes out the window. Ask anyone who has been involved with splitting an inheritance for examples.
I think they are yours. Get rid of them however you want.
But if you are afraid that would create family strife, then go with something along the lines of:
And give him a time limit for picking up his stuff. I wouldn’t sell anything for him, nor offer him any share of the proceeds, unless he asks you to do that before the sale. Also, i wouldn’t bother to mention it at all unless you think he’d care. From your op, it sounds like he wouldn’t, but you know him better than we do, of course.
No one has mentioned it, but storage isn’t free, and you contributed that to “his” part over all these years. Really, you have no reason to feel guilty about your ownership of this collection, unless your brother actually has an interest in it. (In which case… Why hasn’t he mentioned it in 60 years?)
As for
That’s REALLY water under the bridge. It was his. He did something with it at the time that he had every right to do. My husband lost thousands of dollars of Oriental rugs that his uncle had collected because after the uncle’s death the landlord was slimy. I was upset when i learned about it. (And i had wanted to keep some of those rugs for my use.) But … they’re gone. Life goes on.
I guess one’s view of these kinds of matters depends on which one values more, the money, or the relationship. All the strategies mentioned have aimed at preserving the money entirely, or almost entirely, for the OP, at the risk of destroying the relationship through duplicity. If that is also the OP’s attitude, then by all means, he should screw over his brother’s interests as much as possible.
If my sister had been curating some items I originally owned for some 60 years I’d be inclined ot let her do with it what she wanted. It’d be nice if she asked me if I wanted a cut, but I’d probably decline even if I could use the money.
Half seems rather generous if your brother only collected 8 or 10 items in “a sizeable stash”, but I’d offer a reasonable percentage (probably a bit larger than a simple fraction based on the number of items he contributed divided by the total, to err on the side of generosity).
If you’ve had them for literally six decades, they’re yours. He gave them to you. You have no obligation to him.
But if you want to make absolutely sure, for the sake of familial goodwill, then give him the heads-up others have mentioned, “Hey, last chance to claim those doo-dads before I put them on eBay”. If, as seems likely, he declines, then there’s no reason at all for you not to sell them and keep all the money.
Well, if it were me, I’d value the relationship more. And i think that’s consistent with dealing with the collection on your own and not getting into a fight with the brother about what’s the fair share. That’s why I’d be inclined to just return his stuff, if he still feels an ownership interest in any of it. But it really sounds like the brother doesn’t feel an ownership interest, and hasn’t for decades, and explicitly rejected that several times. And bringing it up yet again might be more a source of friction than anything else.
There it is, he’s done his due diligence, brother is not interested.
There’s no reason to assume a fractured relationship or family drama.
And like others who are saying he’s owed half of the sales proceeds or a gift, I feel are creating an issue over a child’s interest in
a hobby that terminated decades ago. He grew up, declined taking back the parts he started with and seemingly has moved on without regret. Let it go.
Does the brother have an idea of the present worth of the collection and his original items? It’s one thing to say, “hey, if you can make a few bucks from it, great,” and another to say “well, you stored the stuff, so the 100K is all yours.” But LSL Guy and I are as one in this situation.
My brother and I had a bunch of comics that we collectively owned and a bunch of role-playing game books that we collectively owned. I think the former we split the money when it was sold and he might have kept the money for the latter.
From my point of view, it depends on the value of the collection. If my 8-10 items were worth a few hundred dollars, who cares? If they were worth a few million dollars, then I might start feeling resentful if I didn’t get a cut.
Well, it sounds like there’s some value, but not all that much as these things go. If the brother has been asked multiple times if he wants his stuff back and declined, I’d be inclined to say he has no interest now. Especially, if ,as said, the brother is well off financially. What would an extra $100 or so (his cut of the stash – my estimate) really mean to him? I like the idea of selling the collection, but getting a nice gift as a thank-you for starting the collection.
The second sentence does not at all follow from the first sentence, nor from anything else that the OP has said about the situation.
And therefore no reason to be sneaky or to lie by omission.