Not necessarily. You don't know the whole story. I once bought an old 1930's portrait photo in a frame from a thrift store. When I went to clean the glass display panel, a bunch of WWII POW letters and photos came falling out of it. They must have been hidden in it for decades.

Turns out the guy died a horrifying death in a Japanese POW camp. I contacted the thrift store and was told a random elderly couple came in and was going to throw this stuff out if the store didn't take it. They were family members that had loads of this guy's stuff.

I did an extensive search to find this guy's next of kin and when I finally contacted this guy's great nephew, I offered to donate for free the POW letters and photo to him. He had no interest in them at all. I asked him to ask other members of his family if they wanted it and they all declined too. I am an antiques dealer and will be selling them now as I found out they have value.

Maybe the antique dealer tried to find the family too and they didn't want it when he contacted them. You'd be surprised to know there are a lot of people that don't care about these important pieces of history. If you really think about it, they must have not cared for it in order for it to get into the dealer's store in the first place. I think $10,000 is a bit much for that antique store to sell it for though.

Not necessarily. You don't know the whole story. I once bought an old 1930's portrait photo in a frame from a thrift store. When I went to clean the glass display panel, a bunch of WWII POW letters and photos came falling out of it. They must have been hidden in it for decades.

Turns out the guy died a horrifying death in a Japanese POW camp. I contacted the thrift store and was told a random elderly couple came in and was going to throw this stuff out if the store didn't take it. They were family members that had loads of this guy's stuff.

I did an extensive search to find this guy's next of kin and when I finally contacted this guy's great nephew, I offered to donate for free the POW letters and photo to him. He had no interest in them at all. I asked him to ask other members of his family if they wanted it and they all declined too. I am an antiques dealer and will be selling them now as I found out they have value. Does this make me a scum bag?