Not to be an arse but had the seller listed loads of movie memorabilia? Ie. do they have lots of posters and lobbies for sale... I never take any chances and there's a certain onus to be placed I think on the buyer. Three example from the past 2 years
1- I've told the story here of an antiques store in northeast US who sells on ebay and has the occasional poster for sale. She actually
folded my
rolled WW1 poster as she thought it was the right thing to do, you know, like you would fold a pair of pants before shipping them.
2- I got a bunch of posters locally from near Montreal and the dude had hundreds of posters and when he showed up to my place posters and non-posters were thrown together in box, the posters were fine, but the guy was clueless. I can only imagine if the local delivery option hadn't been available it would have been a fucking disaster.
3- I drove about an hour+ to an auction house out of town, after I won a poster via phone-in bid. The auctioneer had been dragging his feet and it had been several months and he still had not shipped it. When I picked it up, it was in a flimsy carboard tube, with kleenex stuffed in both sides (no caps) and a piece of clear scotch tape over the ends... it was the poorest packing job I had ever witnessed. Had I not finally picked it up, it would have been destroyed for sure.
Never take chances! Sorry for your loss though... at least the weather in Sumter must be nice