Possible Fake Panther manuals

[Fe 26]

I was the second chance winner of a Panther manual on German ebay.

eBay item number: 141205231821

I was suspicious from the start because the highest bidder had his feedback set to private. Then one day it showed up as zero. I wondered if the seller had made a fake ebay account just to drive up the price.

But the second chance offer was lower than my max bid, so I thought maybe I was just being paranoid. And they waited the full week for the buyer to pay and gave me a discount when I paid. Why bother with either if the highest bidder was a known fake?

After payment, and mailing, this listing pops up:

eBay-Artikelnummer: 281289964679

same images, same description except now it is listed as new and as "Ordentliches vollständiges Exemplar. Von großer Seltenheit!" Implying it is a copy.

I contacted the original seller, and she says that the copies are being sold by her husband. He has 15 copies.

HOW does someone acquire 1 original and 15 copies that look exactly the same?

[Fe 26]

Before taking the second chance offer, I asked to see photos of the book in hand as the ebay images looked like something from a pdf/scanner.

This is what I was sent:





water damaged is circled







It looked real enough at the time, but the duplicate ebay listing and all the funny business with separate ebay accounts and highest bidders with zero feedback has me worried.

[Fe 26]

There is a chance I suppose, that the seller had planned to sell copies from the start, and sold the original first to recoup their investment AND was lazy enough to not take separate pictures for each listing...

But it is also possible that someone found a pdf online, made a copy that looked real and aged it in a barn or with some coffee stains.