Well, admittedly, I’m reading my biases into the story. But
Sounds like this has been a recurring topic of conversation, with the same answer over and over. And personally, i find those get tedious.
Anyway, i don’t think he should be sneaky. My advice was to make his best guess as to whether his brother cares. If the answer is “no”, then just sell them and don’t bother the brother. If the answer is “yes” than tell the brother he is getting rid of them, and give the brother a reasonable time frame to collect his stuff. There’s no world in which he owes his brother a valuation of the pieces and the service of selling them.
60 years of storage fees. This may negate any value coming from the 8-10 items the brother originally bought.
I second (third? fourth?) the notion of telling the brother “I’m selling the entire collection by (date). Last chance to get the 8-10 items back, otherwise they will be included in the sale.”
Sneaky? Lying? That’s a bit of an exaggeration don’t you think?
What makes you think older brother has a claim on these? He refused them already.
You’re seeing sneaky lying behavior from the OP? What about rejection and dismissal from the brother.
If I were to read anything into the story as laid out by the OP, I see a little brother taking up a hobby started by older brother. Lil brother wants to continue to engage in this hobby with older brother. Older brother shuts him down by rejecting his interest in the hobby.
Now 60 years later lil brother’s hobby has grown in value and he wants to sell it. Now he’s supposed to again for the umpteenth time try to engage older brother in this hobby? No.
And if I was to suggest to my sibling, hey I’ve been holding your GI Joe set here , you know the one I keep asking you every time I see you if want it back, with mine own sets for the last 69 years and now for the last time I’m asking do you want it back? You have one week to pick it up or I’m selling it. Just sounds weird, oddly aggressive and open to ridicule if tbt.
No. I’m seeing suggestions to pursue sneaky and lying behavior from other posters (not the OP, and not you), and that is what I have been responding to. Sell the stuff and don’t say anything, or just say “I got rid of it” instead of “I sold it and I’m keeping the money.” There’s nothing wrong with selling it and keeping the money in these circumstances, and that’s why there’s no need to be even remotely underhanded about it. Because if there’s one thing that will destroy family relationships faster and more permanently than money it’s behaving in a back-door manner about money.
I did not mean my response to your post to suggest that you were recommending sneaking or lying; I apologize if it came across that way, and I will be more careful about doing that sort of thing in the future. I pulled that one line as being of general interest to the entire thread.
You are not obligated to offer him half, all, or any of the monies from the sale. As noted YOU created the value by safekeeping the items for 6 decades.
It’s virtually certain that any arms length business transaction where you sell them and give him the net proceeds after deducting for your reasonable labor and storage efforts would net him nothing.
The real question is one only you can answer, how will he react hearing that you profited from the items he bought but let you manage for the last 60 years?