The Father Who Wanted To Make A Bracha

I saw an interesting story today. There was a certain father who had a safeik as to whether his son was obligated in Pidyon Ha-ben [e.g. his wife miscarried the first time and it wasn't clear if the fetus was developed enough to absolve the next child from pidyon or the father is a sefek cohen or safek levi]. The din is that in such an instance you do the pidyon without a bracha. However, he didn't want to miss out on making a bracha on this one-time mitzva. So at the time of the pidyon he gave the money to the kohen and said - "If my son is obligated on pidyon then this should be for him. If not, it should be for the oldest man alive who is obligated in pidyon ha-ben but never did it." And made the bracha.

Ingenius.

This aroused some ire and raised other eyebrows. Was this appropriate?

There is a famous shittah that one may not appoint a shaliach for pidyon ha-ben but he would still have a sfeik sfeika: Maybe his son is really obligated in pidyon and even if he is not maybe one may perform pidyon on someone elses behalf even without his knowledge [זכין לאדם שלא בפניו]. That gets us into the huuuuge machlokes achronim if you make a bracha when you have a sfeik sfeika.

Any ideas?

See Otzar Pidyon Ha-ben Page 98 and in Yabia Omer 6/26 and you will be all that much wiser.