Steve -
I think artswork and jseitang were saying you should look for an Alembic club member in Philly, who can at least go see the instrument physically and make sure it's worth doing.
No matter how you do it, if you don't go to the instrument there's some amount of risk. Whether it's worth it or not is up to you. It's a challenging slope here. If you send somebody money and they don't send you the goods, then PayPal can hold payment to the seller until things are resolved - but this is a process that can take months to complete and you (or the seller) won't have the money until it's settled. This also applies if there is damage in shipping, loss in shipping, or if you get the instrument and it's not what you expected.
You can't reasonably expect the seller to wait until you receive it to get payment either. What if you don't pay? What if you damage the instrument after taking delivery? Even if you sent it back, they can't be made whole.
David Fung
