[Tonto]

+1 to buy them yourself offer more than they are asking if it makes you feel bad, time is a resource and so is knowledge these you have and they don't. Also you will make sure they end up in the hands of people who will cherish the lenses. If you make a mint you could always donate back.
This kind of thing happens all the time in liquidation of assets and whole industries work on this principle.

[rparmar]

If you have to ask, you are looking for justification, not the ethical decision. ;-)

[Boris_Akunin]

so much for the moral dilemma. very smooth move to buy it in a package for 130 €, now sell it for 400 €..

I didn't actually buy it with the intention of selling it, I just picked out those lenses that looked the most interesting until my wallet ran dry.
I'll definitely keep the Kiron 24/2, the Tokina 17/3.5 and the Soligor 17/4, I'm not sure about the Zenitar 16/2.8.
I'll probably use the proceeds on a FA77, so in my deluded mind I'm not making profit, I'm just swapping lenses.
(btw: I sold it to an art student who's into portraits, so it's in better hands now)

The moral dilemma is about what to do next. The most self-serving strategy would be to pick out the best bargains, sell them off and use the profits to repeat the process. The most altruistic approach would be to offer my help for free but the proceeds wouldn't exactly be going to charity (most goes to the uninterested family, some goes to the astronomy club).
I have settled on B* as a compromise, any profit I get will come from the extra profit they would not get without my help.
Since I'll be essentially in charge of pricing, most will probably be sold at relatively cheap prices to speed up the sale. After all, there are probably not too many people who are looking specifically for an Arsat-B 30mm f/3.5 Fisheye (Pentacon-6, 5 identical lenses and still counting...).

If you have to ask, you are looking for justification, not the ethical decision. ;-)

I guess I'm looking for a justifiable compromise between profit and ethics. (By the way, is the Pedophilic Catholic Church still selling indulgences?)

[Boris_Akunin]

Allright,

the seller (the club member who has taken that role for the heirs) will be at the next photography fair in Hamburg,
after that I'll be helping him with selling the rest online (with full res photos and detailed descriptions, I will tell you where to find it, when it happens).

Anyone who is close enough to get to the north west of Germany in person can search through the heap before that.
And if he/she is a fellow pentaxian, I will tell him/her where and who to call (PM me).

I've given the seller a few pointers so you guys don't rob him blind but you will still be getting very good deals, he really doesn't seem to be in it for the money and just wants to get done with it.
The vultures at the fair will probably pick out a lot of the rare/valuable stuff, so you might want to take a look before that. There are also loads of caps, filters, adapters (T2, Adaptall-2 and the like) and other small things yet uncatalogued, I've long given up searching through it all. A few large format lenses (some radioactive ones) are to be found too.

The larger part of the heap consists of binoculars, telescopes, oculars, etc. (and some are f**king huge!)
The largest pair is binoculars is nearly as big as this one: http://rhythmconnection.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/09/l_2048_1536_2F4F3123-...AEF9529F0.jpeg

Apparently, the deceased spent his time around 1990 on "flea markets" near and beyond the FRG/GDR border.


I hope I'm in the lighter parts of moral grey now.


regards
Jan