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This absolutely worthless modern fake (but very well done, even had a Gardner backmark!) sold for $177.50 tonight on ebay, and the bidders id's were "protected" by ebay at the request of the seller. Do you think an armed black cdv would sell for this amount if it were legitimate? No way. Over a thousand dollars easily and probably a whole lot more! The poor bidder probably thinks he lucked out and no one noticed this jewel (in his eyes). Let's stop these con men from hurting innocent novice collectors. FOOTNOTE: I was just looking through the balance of his auctions and he has quite a few "Private Auctions" as well as normal ones. Seems he knows when the material is fake, he slaps a "Private Auction" on it to keep his bidders from being warned. 10 of his 47 auctions are "Private Auctions", and all 10 deal with fake militaria and Indian collectibles.

I emailed the seller that I was on to his scam and this was his response:

"Hello, I received your e-mail and would like to know how you consider it a fake without ever seeing it. Anyone that has ever bought anything from me and was dis-satisified, I have given a full refund including shipping. I buy my items from antique malls mostly and as you may know, they will not guarantee anything and I always tell a potential bidder this. I have sent items many times to buyers, at my expense, for their evaluation before payment is sent and sometimes they accept them and occasionally they don't. The reason for the private auctions is that I would like to have the opportunity to answer their questions before an unrelated party sends an unsolicited opinion.And as I said before, after they receive the item and evaluate it, I will refund the full amount if they are not satisfied and I am quite sure anyone paying a lot of money for something will know what they are getting. I am not an authority on any of these items and can only express what I am told when I purchase them but I try to tell bidders to use their best judgement before bidding on any of these items."
Geez, I guess the policy of "throw sh_t against the wall and if it sticks" applies to fakes as well. Seems he generously lets you hang yourself by allowing you to view the questionable item before you pay for it (what if you don't have the required experiance, which is usually the case for the winning bidder, as an experienced collector would not even bid on this crap). My problem with this is that they know these are frauds, so why sell them at all? They are killing the trust in the image business!!