The years pass and I get a note from his wife saying that the collector had passed away but had left instructions that this item (which they family didn't want or care about it's value) was to be willed back to me, on the condition that I never sell it.
That is a beautiful story.
For a while, I was really into old pulp magazines -- The Spider, Doc Savage, Operator 5 and the like -- and I learned that the pulp collecting community is very tight, and fraternal. A lot of collectors view themselves more or less as archivists, custodians of these rare and crumbling old treasures, and they've written wills that include instructions for how to distribute their books among fellow collectors they've met and befriended along the way, people they know will cherish -- and care for -- the books as they would have themselves. I thought that was awesome, and frankly the opposite of a lot of "whoever dies with the most valuable collection wins" attitude I often get from comic collectors.
On the darker side, years ago an elderly lady called to say she wanted to donate some of her late husband's possessions to our church, and I went over to collect them. The late gentleman had an impressive set of movie-making gear -- Super 8 and 16mm -- and a collection of films he'd made over his lifetime. The cameras, title kits, lights, etc went in a box, but when the widow got to the films, she said, "Well, you could re-use the reels, but you wouldn't care about these old films." So for each reel, she put a pencil through the center hole and spun the film off into a wastebasket. I'm still horrified just thinking about it. She may have been right and the subject matter wouldn't have interested anyone else, but who knows. Anyway, I pictured all the countless hours the guy had put into shooting and editing those films, even creating hand-made title slates with that cool kit, all with hopes of preserving memories of his life, and there they were all piling up in that wastebasket.
I learned from that to cherish the things that make me happy but to value people and experiences over possessions. Because someday we'll all be gone, and what was treasure to us will be disposable clutter to somebody else. And that if you really, truly, value something and know there's someone, anyone else out there in the world who it'll make as happy as it did you, put it in your will, even if you do feel silly including toys and comics in a legal document. Bad enough to have to kick off, without having your best stuff hauled off to a landfill.