'AITA for not giving my sports cards back to my dad after he found out how much they’re worth?' UPDATED 2X
"AITA for not giving my sports cards back to my dad after he found out how much they’re worth?"
I (19M) was gifted my dad’s sports card collection for my 18th birthday. He had boxes of them from when he was growing up. I started looking into how you could get them graded.
I finally shipped the best ones out a few months ago and just got them back last week. I was happy to see how highly some of them were graded. I researched what these cards would go for and my jaw dropped. This money would help me pay for college and I would still have a decent amount left over.
I was visiting my parents and my dad mentioned something about those cards. I made the mistake of saying how much some of these cards are worth. He didn’t have much of a reaction that night.
The next day, I get a long text from my dad saying that he gave it some thought and wanted his cards back. The money would help him and my mom pay for their dream vacation. I thought it was a joke, but he was serious. I told him sorry but they were a gift and I intended on using this money for college.
Since then, I’ve been getting hurtful texts from my parents telling me how selfish I am. They said I’m an AH for wanting to sell these cards because they were a gift. Even though they would do the same thing if I gave them back. I planned on getting my dad a cool gift for his birthday with some of my money, but I’m starting to think he doesn’t deserve anything at all. AITA?
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
NTA. They were given to you and your college education is more important than their dream vacation.
Completely agree, go to college OP. That's incredibly selfish of your dad to demand it back when you're putting the money to something educational, especially considering he didn't bother doing the leg work of finding out how much they were worth to begin with. NTA.
I say NTA. Originally I was a little wary, thinking that he wanted you to keep them and hand them down if you have kids, because they meant a lot to him. When you said he found the value and wanted to go on a dream vacation I changed my mind.
I think college is more important than his vacation, but it also sounds like they’re trying to manipulate you to give the cards back by saying “they were a gift not to sell” when he already said he wanted to sell them for a vacation.
Ten days later, the OP returned with an update.
I didn’t want to lose my relationship with my parents over this, so I decided to compromise. My idea was to keep the cards and handle the sales myself. However, I would communicate each sale with my parents and come up with a fair split to pay for college and their vacation. I told my parents we could meet up on Monday and discuss this situation.
Unfortunately, they continued to harass me over the days leading up to our talk. Apparently having to work on Mother’s Day was just an excuse by me to avoid talking to them about the cards.
By the time we met, I was pretty tired of their nonsense. I could be the AH for this but I decided to test them. I lied and told them they could have the cards if they paid me back the cost of getting them graded.
When I told them the price, they didn’t believe me. I was accused of lying to get more money out of this. I realized it wasn’t worth proving it. They wanted everything and there was no compromise to be made. I told them not to contact me and that I’d only be around to see my brother and go to other family events.
So that’s how it went. Glad they care more about the money than me! I’ve been trying to keep it together, but it’s been hard. Thankfully my girlfriend has been around to comfort me. She’s the best.
Maybe I’ll use some of that extra money on a vacation for us. Haven’t heard anything from other family yet so I don’t know how this is all gonna play out. Guess all I can do now is work on getting these cards sold and hope for the best.
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Your compromise was very reasonable. I am sorry they acted like this.
It wasn't even a compromise. If they were getting the cards back and selling them the least they could do is reimburse OP for the costs he had in getting the cards ready to sell (he didn't even ask to be compensated for his time).
Wow. I just have no good response other than I’m glad to read you stood up for yourself. Parents who put money above children shouldn’t get to be parents. I’m glad they’re not in your life anymore.
I'm betting the parents gave OP this gift explicitly because they thought it was worthless and didn't want to (or forgot to) buy OP something.
Considering the father was very quick to want to sell them himself to go on vacation, I don't think these cards were very "sentimental" to him. More like he had hoarded them and didn't bother doing the work of looking into their worth or selling them himself.
But once that work was done, was very ready to go ahead and take 100% of the profits, even though his son wants to use the money in a very practical way by paying for his education.
A week later, the OP returned with another update.
Earlier today, I had my first family party to go to since everything went down. I guess word kind of got around about what happened because I had some family ask me if I was alright over text.
My parents were not at the party while I was there. Not sure if they showed up at all. Everything seems to be fine with the rest of my family. Nobody treated me any different.
In my last post, people were telling me to save some money for my brother which was a great idea. I’ll have to do that in secret when he graduates. I’ve decided to do even more and start building a sports card collection of my own. I can pass that down to my own kids one day.
I definitely feel better now that this hasn’t affected the relationship with the rest of my family. I’m excited to take some beach trips with my GF so I can relax this summer. Also looking forward to selling these cards. I promised a few of you to send pics of my cards so if you’re reading this, please remind me. This is probably my last update so thanks again for the support!
Here is what readers had to say in response to the OP’s post:
Money always brings out the worst in people and messes up family relationships.
OP was mature enough to even offer a compromise… really sucks that his parents only cared about the money. I feel like I would be happy to accidentally gift my kid $50k+. Set his future up nicely.
LMAO at the commenter that said “Use PayPal they’ll defend you if you get scammed” after reading the earlier post in this sub about the guy who had to go to the buyer’s house to get his money back because PayPal didn’t care that the buyer gave back a much cheaper item than that OP sold him.