Dan
I think Dan is a stand up guy - he's always been one of the most straight forward and best sellers on ebay. He has alot of useful stuff. He ships outside the US without any questions, and I have never had an issue with anything I ever bought from him and I have certainly never felt like he was lying about something he sold me - I think his auction for this bike is pretty clear in terms of what his claims are - he's not claiming anything about the bike he shouldn't be.
The age old argument behind all of this is one of 'to part out versus not to part out' and many people might not like the fact he parts out. Personally I don't even have a position in that argument - some bikes I hate to see broken down and others I don't care, it's personal really but which came first, the chicken of the egg - what I mean is: there will always be bikes that need parts and there will always be parts for those bikes and they will often come from people who make a living dealing parts. I don't think that is something that we can not accept, it just is and always will be. Lets just try to step up to the ones we want kept in one piece, when we have the chance.
But going back to the original public hanging, I didn't get the impression he was creating something that isn't by lying. Because it's ebay a person has to be a little careful because there are plenty of a**h*les out there and it's obviously a good idea sometimes to just say you are not sure of anything in terms of the bike and let people deduce it for themselves and welcome any questions about details of the bike. If you wrote to Dan and asked if he thought it was a complete untouched orig bike he's not going to say yes is he. Chances are he probably doesn't know for sure and would rather let experts decide for themselves. Everybody has different information so in the end we can only talk in probabilities, not certainties.
If I had a bike like that to sell and I knew alot of different things about it, some things which might be opposing, some which are more sure - I'd probably still put it up on ebay and start with a sort of disclaimer, ie: I'm not sure of anything and I'm not saying anything about said bike but here's what I think, it can be built as a .......etc, if you have any questions please ask.
Let the experts decide I guess. I doubt the person who buys it will not have a certain amount of knowledge of his own on that particular model.
When I buy something I read what the seller says but I also make my own assessments and decide for myself based on pictures and perhaps a couple specific questions.
....and he does offer a return/refund - I don't see what the problem is here. We are talking about somebody with a huge ebay presence and a hell of alot of good feedback from thousands of happy customers.
Maybe the best thing to do is to just list pictures and not say anything. As I understood it he says which models he thinks could be asserted with that bike as a starting point and about that he's not wrong.
