I think the face of Dreamer at the moment he finds out he suddenly won Machina II for $10,000 must have been über funny. :D :D :D

I'm almost certain it's real, considering her story is verifiable and couldn't be easily made up.

I have half a mind to call her up and offer her $xx just to see if she'll take it. Then I'd pay to fly myself and D4 to Chicago and if it passes muster, I'd make out like a fox.

Go for it.

Perhaps the seller was also the buyer?

Well, probably not... but before I read the winner's post, I thought it could be a possibility.

short version:

claims she got it from someone (sounds like an ex-boyfriend) who won it at a silent auction for a few hundred bucks benefitting ALS (lou gherig's disease).

i found a chicago ALS charity that recieved "rock memorabilia" within a few mnoths of her purported timetable from Q101. a call to q101's programming director confirmed they no longer had their copy, but he couldn't vouch for what happened to it. the number she gave of her copy (19) was later confirmed to be q101's copy.

:rofl:

They probably had no idea what it was. "And now up for auction, umm... some record with weird drawings all over it."

Someone want to give me the sellers info. I could be there later tonight.

Wait a second... didn't i read somewhere it was won in some sort of silent or private auction for the ALS? This would mean it might in fact not have been in any catalogue or list. Possibly understandably so because Q101 was indeed auctioning off a true rock-n-roll gift and might not want to stand publicly known as a Chicago Radiostation which tosses Corgan gifts onto the general (auction) market.
Think about it: if it had been in the open auction someone would have known and written/reported about it, wouldn't it?
This set might in fact be very real and indeed won at the Q101/ALS auction, but i doubt if it was sold in a general auction style/auction room
Speaking of which: although eBay sells some goodies for awesome amounts of cash i'd never offer a copy of M2 (provided i had one that is) on eBay. A well promoted rock-n-roll auction, which also brings in a good catalogue and online possibilities to deliver bids, which is affiliated with very trusted auctioneers (no, i am not automatically thinking Sotheby's, but along those lines, yes), would be the way to go i think with items like these.
Then again: The Velvet Underground unreleased acetates from within the studio turn up on car bootsales these days (according to Record Collector a few issues ago), so...

best magazine in the world dude

referring to this magazine did in fact imply it was kind of an authority, so no disrespect or anyhing intended, on the contrary...

no i wasn't being sarcastic, it really is the bast magazine in the world. :)

i get it pretty religiously and i've got a huge pile of back issues at home

then that makes two of us...