DiLululemma

My husband has an old friend, from high school days, who is passionate about comics to the point that his old apartment was stacked top to bottom, including in the oven, with comics. When I first met this fellow, he and my husband discussed "Little Lulu" at great length. Having only recently been introduced to the world of comics, I just stood by silently while all these unfamiliar names and inside jokes went flying. But I did gather from the conversation that there was one item missing from his collection for which he'd give his eyeteeth: Little Lulu volume one, a set of three hardbound books in a sheath. There were several volumes which had come out in reverse order, and the interest in them at the time was so poor that they printed fewer and fewer of each succeeding volume, so that by the time volume one was published, they only put out about 1000 of them. This means that now this volume is extremely rare. When it shows up on eBay, it usually sells for about $700.

Last month my husband found this volume in a local comics shop for $125. Obviously these people had not done their research! He came rushing home, asking me what I thought we should do. For both of us our first reaction was to buy the books and let the friend buy it from us at cost. The friend was called, and I went, armed with a credit card, to acquire this mysterious item.

Later, we both felt some remorse. We could really use the money if we sold it on eBay. My husband even said that he'd be happy to keep the volume himself, as he is also quite the collector. We agonized over ways that we could retract the offer to the friend while maintaining our morality. No solution revealed itself to us, and we grudgingly followed through. The friend was pretty happy.

It is sometimes hard to be good and painful to do the right thing.
Any thoughts from my readers on what you would have done?