An elderly relative tells you they know a recently bereaved lady whose husband had a couple of old cars like yours and she now wants them gone.

You go and see the old dear who shows you into the garage, pulls back the dust sheets and reveals, for the purposes of this example, a 2CV and an Ami 8, both in stunning councours condition. They have been maintained regardless of cost and have only a few thousand miles on them.

She asks you what you think they are worth and would you like to buy them. Do you;

1. Say that they are potentially very valuable and the best thing to do would be to for you to put them on eBay on her behalf, sell them to the highest bidder and take, say 5% of the sale fee for your trouble?

2. Tell her that the market is very bad for this sort of thing and say you'll buy them from her, agree a figure that is about 15% of the true value and then feel very pleased with yourself for being so clever?

I'd really like to know how the 2CV community would feel about something like this.

The bold bit. It's just how I roll ... I'd never be happy with myself if I felt I'd ripped someone off. I'd hate to turn into one of those people to whom money means so much that they have to resort to deceiving old dears to get hold of it.

That's what I'd say.

Option 1 - but only if you reckon eBay would get the best price rather than a classified ad somewhere appropriate or southerbys classic car auction... if for the purpose of this example they are as mint as you say.

The cars are actually worth a total of £11k to £15k; depending on where you sell them and who will buy them.

But of course this is just hypothetical as everyone in the 2CV Community is so nice.

I'd like to think i would do the right thing, But actually being in that situation may make me do something that i would not be proud of.
Just being honest haha!

We'd all like to think we'd do the right thing. But if the situation actually arose, it might be a little harder to act with perfect integrity. I suspect that if someone had a car that I really wanted, I'd offer what the car was worth to me, even if it might be capable of fetching a little more on the open market. On the other hand, offering the seller a pittance, knowing it can be sold on at a vast profit is inexcusable, and anyone who's guilty of that deserves treating with contempt.

Joolz - if you go to someone and say "I know it's worth more but I've dreamed of owning this car and here's my very best offer" then they can make a decision. In the situation I have described there is a value to seeing the cars go to someone who would appreciate them.

But to offer a fraction of the true value to a vulnerable elderly person is just plain wrong - I don't care how it's justified or dressed up. Do something like this and it will come back and bite you big time.

That's two different scenarios ... I think I'd be tempted to make an offer perhaps a bit lower than the market value; the important thing is that the seller knows that it's under the market value, and the cars don't appear on ebay within the week for stupid money.