Well, I just received my poster from the eBay auction I mentioned earlier.
www.ebay.com/itm/271145453765Long story short, I am royally pissed. The poster arrived in horrible condition. The buyer claimed "Near Mint", and yet it was barely "Fair" IMHO.
The first thing I noticed was that one of the corners was missing. About 2" of paper is gone from the top-left corner. The top-right is also missing paper, with a 2+ inch rip going down from the top. The back of the poster is covered in tape or tape residue. The front of the poster also has tape on it, not to mention some sticky substance with hair attached. The bottom corners are also bad (though not as much as the top), with the bottom left having paper loss on the back where tape must have been applied then ripped off. The edges are beat to hell (which could have been done before hand, or possibly in transit, as it was shipped lose in a tube container inside of a box. Along that line, the tube itself was shipped inside a larger box with insulation, but that was pointless since the poster itself was just bouncing around inside the tube.
While the center of the poster, where the "artwork" is, is in fairly good condition, the surrounding edges are horrible.
I spoke to the seller via eBay messaging a few times before buying it, and not once did he ever say anything about this. His listing, with the picture conveniently leaving the damage out, claims "near mint", which is clearly false to the point of being well past deceptive IMHO. He seemed like a nice guy, but I find it hard to believe that this was simply a case of him not knowing how to properly grade a poster.
I've already sent him a "not as described" email, through eBay, and he just responded (as I was typing this) that he would provide a full refund (plus return postage) and apologized for the issue. He said "When I showed the poster to local poster shop they said it was near mint because no wrinkles, folds, markings." So I guess he was mislead.
Anyway, this was my wife's birthday present to me (vicariously), which is in three days, so I think she is more pissed than I am (which is a lot).
This is why I prefer to buy posters from reputable places like EMP. In fact, outside of CM auctions on eBay, this was my first eBay poster buy. I think it might be my last.
On a side note, to Thierry, the GAU logo is there and clear. So I have no doubt it's genuine. Albeit a genuine crappy condition.