I'm sure that it was an oversight on his part. I have probably purchased four or five raw 1950s and 1960s cards from him over the years. They have always graded right where I expected. In my experience, his listing's have always accurately described the card's condition, and he even voluntarily points out flaws - including latent ones.
All those factors contributed to me blindly assuming/trusting that the card I was purchasing was real. Considering he is a long-time seller, has a high rating, and I've always had great experiences in the past with his purchases, I admittedly didn't do my due diligence. I kind of took the attitude that he had never given me a reason not to trust him, and had a great track record. Unfortunately, I shouldn't have let my guard down. Lesson learned.
However, when I showed him the evidence he did not argue with me, get defensive, and profusely apologized. He immediately refunded my money, took down the remaining listings, and also refunded/canceled someone else's recent order. So, he ended up doing right by me and the other guy that purchased one and did not even know there was an issue with his purchase.
I was extremely lucky and only caught the mistake by pure chance. The only reason I caught the issue was that I had recently purchased two different cards of this player, and decided to only keep one. I elected to keep the T-206 copy and discussed the other card with Howard. If I had elected to keep the other card, or did not discuss it with Howard, it probably would be sitting in my collection undetected until Bobby's next piggyback submission. I wouldn't have discovered the reprint issue for a long time.
Howard was the one that did the detective work and discovered the red flag. Again, thanks Howard. I give the guy a pass on this one. No one is perfect. Just goes to show that you got to remain on your toes at all times.
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