Who owns this sign, the guy who bought it or the original owners?

October 11, 2015 1:20 PM

If someone buys something that ends up having sentimental value to someone else and was previously owned by them, are you obligated to give it to that person/s?

I live in an historic US town, one of the oldest in the country. I admin an active Facebook group for buying and selling home goods in this town. There are 20K people who live here and about 3K in the group. Recently, someone posted a sign from an old clothing store that used to be here years ago, way before my time (I've been here about 15 years). This guy had bought this sign at an antique store or something and was selling it for $400. This caused an uproar on the site, as many people ganged up on the seller, telling him he should donate the sign to the family that owned the store, that that would be the "right thing to do". Some told him he should return it to its "rightful owner" (the family who ran the store), even though he'd bought it, so one assumes that at some point it was sold or discarded. I thought this was absurd and as an admin stepped in and made it clear that he was well within his rights to sell something he'd bought, just everyone else does on the site every day. People started saying they'd take up a collection to buy it for the family if he would not give it to them, which I thought was fine. The family in question never chimed in during this conversation, though apparently some of them are in this FB group. In the end, one woman bought it so that she could give it to the store owner's family, but apparently when she went to pick it up, she was VERY nasty to the seller and made it clear she thought he was terrible for selling it rather than giving it to the family. I haven't been able to wrap my mind around this whole thing. This guy had an item he wanted to sell, something he'd bought outright. The store from which the sign came has been closed and gone for decades (I'd never even heard of it). But people who've lived here for that long were getting out their pitchforks because this guy wanted to sell it. So who's right? Was he really obligated to give it away? Or is this just insularity gone crazy? What do you think?

posted by FlyByDay to Society & Culture (25 answers total)

Best answer: The people demanding he give it to the family are utterly wrong as long as the article was bought in good faith (ie not stolen at any point in the chain of sale).

I find it baffling that they assume it is the 'right thing to do'. The sign was sold and he bought it and is neither obligated to give or even sell the sign back to the original owner. He owns it and can do what he wants with it. The mob are completely unreasonable and have no basis for their ire, in my opinion.
posted by Brockles at 1:29 PM on October 11, 2015 [19 favorites]

Offering to sell it to the family for whatever price he paid for it would have been the decent thing for this guy to do. I can see why people would be upset if he paid $50 and was trying to make a big profit.
posted by ssg at 1:31 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

For all of the drama involved, the answer seems pretty clear to me: it belonged to the man who bought it years ago and has owned it ever since. If the original store owners had wanted it, I assume they would have taken it with them or created some document guaranteeing its return should the storefront ever be disassembled.

The person who it did not belong to were the angry residents. (How entitled and gross of them, I mean, really?!) It'd be one thing if it were a relic owned by the city but it was a privately-owned item that they really had no business trying to control. If the family had wanted it again, they could have privately worked out a deal with the guy. However, it didn't seem like they even really wanted it that much?!
posted by smorgasbord at 1:31 PM on October 11, 2015 [14 favorites]

He was not obligated to give it away, if he is wealthy it might have been nice to do so, but this sounds like old guard locals closing ranks on a relative newcomer, perhaps? If it were me, I might offer it first to the family at a discount. I think the pitchforkers behaved badly here.
posted by vrakatar at 1:31 PM on October 11, 2015

Best answer: The family in question never chimed in during this conversation

If there were a back story here in which the family didn't have a chance to keep hold of sentimental things connected to the store, then it might be a nice gesture. Since there isn't a back story -- and if there were, you'd expect the family to volunteer it -- then the mob can STFU.

If I buy your childhood home, am I obliged to let you stay when you feel nostalgic? Of course not.
posted by holgate at 1:32 PM on October 11, 2015 [7 favorites]

Best answer: The people jumping all over the guy seem to assume the family would even want the sign. He's under no obligation to give them (or even sell them) the sign. There's no "right thing" to do here. He purchased the sign from a retail dealer, fair and square. Should the retailer have also given the sign back to the family? I think people are letting their sense of nostalgia cloud their thinking.
posted by Thorzdad at 1:37 PM on October 11, 2015

Nope- people sell their things all the time- with or without their name on it- and then the thing is not theirs anymore. Even if they "lost " the business due to failure, they could have held on to the sign if it meant much. The grandkids don't get to take it back.

I'm wondering if someone in that family put a bug about this in someone's ear? Because it is so off the wall- and seemed to have spread wide in the group... I wouldn't be shocked if they started a whisper campaign.
posted by TenaciousB at 1:37 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Does the original family even want it?

If I had bought something just for decorative purposes, and a friend came over and was like "MY GRANDPA DESIGNED THAT POSTER!" or something, yeah, sure, I might be willing to part with it depending on how much it cost and how close a friend it was. If they wanted to buy it off me, that would be absolutely fine and I might even sell it at a loss, again, depending on the situation.

But in your actual situation, where people on a listserv are assuming that someone will want this thing this person has, and that they have to give it to them for free and can't sell it to anyone else? And the recipient of the thing isn't even involved? Ugh, nope.

Let one of the members of the listserv buy it and gift it to the family if they're so concerned about it.
posted by Sara C. at 1:43 PM on October 11, 2015

Response by poster: Let one of the members of the listserv buy it and gift it to the family if they're so concerned about it.>>

That's exactly what happened, Sara C., but apparently the buyer was VERY nasty when she picked it up (refused to shake the seller's hand, made a comment about how she "wasn't going to moralize", which is of course exactly what she was doing) and made it clear she thought he should have given it to the family. Oy.
posted by FlyByDay at 2:07 PM on October 11, 2015

I've been thinking about this some more. Perhaps the sign even brings up bad memories for the family, like the children hated having to work there or everyone is so sad the business closed. If community members feel it has importance to them, they should buy it collectively to donate to a local museum or the like.
posted by smorgasbord at 2:09 PM on October 11, 2015

Yeah, this is such absolutely bizarre behavior that I'm thinking there has to be more to the story that somebody isn't telling.
posted by The Underpants Monster at 2:26 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Unless it was stolen, pillaged or misappropriated, the response from your villagers was terribly inappropriate. Pitchforks indeed.
posted by cecic at 2:58 PM on October 11, 2015 [5 favorites]

People on Facebook are incredibly ridiculous about a lot of things. Or social media, generally. I'm a big fan of a particular kitten cam where occasionally someone will show up and comment that, like, the lady doing the fostering has some kind of moral obligation NOT to adopt out one of the kittens she has in her care right now, who is special needs. Because they've made up their mind that he belongs there. Now, she might keep him, because he may be quite awhile getting to the point where he'd actually be adoptable anyway, but that's entirely her call? But that doesn't stop people from having very strong opinions about it just because they're on the internet and they have enough free time to have strong opinions.

I'm guessing, if you look at the size of your actual town, that while it looked like a substantial number of people were on this side of things in the Facebook group, that this number a proportion of the actual number of people who live in town is minuscule. I doubt this so much reflects the general attitude of the town as the way that people upset about something will tend to dominate any given internet discussion, because the ones not upset don't feel as compelled to comment.
posted by Sequence at 2:59 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Many people like to get worked up over 'moral' issues where there's no chance they'll be personally implicated. Once the first person went there, it's not so surprising it built up.

If the family in question had actually chimed in with a compelling story (or anyone who knew them well enough to offer one), the question might rise to the level of a quandary. But under the actual circumstances it sounds like a big fat nothing.

The buyer being purposely rude and humiliating to the seller seems like a bigger moral faux pas than the seller selling.
posted by Salamandrous at 3:29 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Yes, I want to hear the rest of the story where the family has no interest in a big ol' sign.
posted by rhizome at 3:37 PM on October 11, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: So the family sold the sign along with the store, originally, years ago, and were also on the FB group where they had the opportunity to speak up and claim it again and didn't? It's pretty cut and dried that they have no interest in the sign and actively wanted to get rid of it (or at least their ancestor did) to the point that they accepted money for someone to take it away. This is bizarre behaviour on behalf of the rest of the FB members.

What they're basically saying is that you have a future claim on anything that a relative of yours has previously sold. I expect them to be prepared to relinquish any antiques they've bought then, to any person who can prove that in was ever in their family. No more ridiculous than what they're proposing. These people are crazy. If you're admin, I would seriously consider removing or banning them from the page for harassment.
posted by Jubey at 4:30 PM on October 11, 2015 [4 favorites]

If you remember the store, you're a True Header. If you know the family, you're a True Header. If you were a True Header, you'd give them the sign. Well, this guy didn't want to just flush away his money, so clearly he's not a True Header. That means it's okay to be nasty to him. Most people in town are not like this, but the attitude definitely exists.
posted by Marit at 7:39 PM on October 11, 2015 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Marit, that kind of tribal nastiness is appalling to me. Noone else knows what that guy's situation is. Maybe he really needed the money. The assumption that he could blithely give it away when he bought it smacks of profound entitlement. The whole thing made me mad, and sad.
posted by FlyByDay at 7:58 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

Picking up on Marit's comment, the gang mentality also taps into another thing sometimes associated with long-time residents of historic places: the remembered past they carry with them is their mental model of the place, an ideal present, while the objective present state is flawed and not really legitimate.

If you believe that 57 Main Street was, is and ever shall be Soandso & Son's Tailors and refer to it as such even though there have been half a dozen other businesses there in the intervening years, then you're the kind of person who'd get upset by someone selling a sign. It's totally irrational.
posted by holgate at 9:20 PM on October 11, 2015 [2 favorites]

It's not a drug people need to live, in which case there is a moral issue. If the seller knew someone wanted it for sentimental reasons and upped the price, that would be slimy. I used to have a store, and the sign stayed when I sold the business. If the sign became available, I wouldn't expect someone to give it to me.
posted by theora55 at 10:46 PM on October 11, 2015

I suspect that there is more to this story. Maybe the family was in dire financial straits and had to liquidate, or otherwise lost access to stuff they value. Or maybe there's a pattern of sellers taking advantage like this. I would ask some of the people who were upset about it. If a bunch of people who lived in a small town for a long time are angry about something, I guess they could be reenacting "The Lottery," but there might also be a piece of history you don't know.
posted by thetortoise at 1:36 AM on October 12, 2015

If someone buys something that ends up having sentimental value to someone else and was previously owned by them, are you obligated to give it to that person/s?

The short answer is that the item has zero sentimental value to the previous owner, so no.
posted by urbanwhaleshark at 4:16 AM on October 12, 2015 [1 favorite]

My guess is that the woman who picked up the sign is the ringleader in this, not a member of the family. She is enough involved in wanting the sign that she was the one to pick it up, so likely also one of the organizers in raising the money too.

I'd be more likely to suspect that the family didn't care one way or another and were keeping their mouth shut they didn't want the people who were making a big deal about it to turn on them.

Why don't you watch to see who has custody of the sign and what they do with it?
posted by Jane the Brown at 9:58 AM on October 12, 2015

Response by poster: Is "$400 for an old sign" waaaaaaaay more than most things are priced on the Facebook group?>>

Good question! It's an affluent town, so there are often high end things on there (furniture, cars, boats, electronics) as well as low end stuff. Town-related items are very popular and go fast. They're usually not this expensive, but they're usually smaller things.
posted by FlyByDay at 1:05 PM on October 12, 2015

Sounds like some good old-fashioned small town drama.

Buddy bought it from an antique store that was selling it, which suggests to me that the antique store bought it at some point, or found it, and nobody said whiz until buddy wanted to sell it, so while $400 seems a bit rich for pretty much anything I can think of, buddy is allowed to sell it to whoever he wants at whatever price that person is willing to pay. He's totally in the right. I wouldn't even give away old socks if I thought I could get five bucks for them from some joker, and I don't care who knitted those bad boys.
posted by turbid dahlia at 7:00 PM on October 14, 2015 [1 favorite]