Back in the 1970's the cousin of a friend of mine was doing some building work for a little old widow in the east of England. Over the course of the weeks he was working on her house she struck up conversations with him and during one mentioned that her son's "old car" was in the garage of the house. Her son had been a pilot in the RAF during WWII and had been killed in action. She asked him if he was interested in seeing it, and said he could have it for free if he wanted it and took it away.
On opening up the somewhat dilapidated garage he found a very dusty SS100 Jaguar. Realising what he was looking at he declined the old lady's offer of taking it away for free and suggested that she should instead contact a specialist auction house to arrange its sale, which she did. When it subsequently sold, she insisted on gifting him half the funds realised because "at my age I don't really need the money". Best payday he ever had.
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