Readers’ forum: Appropriation from trading stock?

My client is a dealer in rare books. He also collects books and memorabilia on railway history. Quite often he will buy a collection of books – say when somebody is clearing their deceased parent’s house – and if he finds a rare or interesting railway item he will often take it to add it to his personal collection rather than put it as stock for sale (he doesn’t have a shop and operates exclusively online). Some of these items can be very valuable. When buying a collection he will pay a single price for the collection and quite often it is only when the collection is inspected at his premises that he finds rare items (and of course sometimes he finds that what he has paid for is a collection of duds not worth the price).

Recently he came to me to say that...