Wow, that's a shame about the frame. When I saw the photo in the ebay link I think I drooled a little. That is by far my favorite Merckx color scheme- it's the one I always wanted. I hope you can save it.

If it makes you feel any better I got sucked into buying a Merckx on ebay and ended up overpaying also. A little different situation, I was looking for a frame only but saw what seemed like a good deal on a complete bike with Ultegra STI. I thought I would be able to sell off the components for a few hundred and end up with a cheap frame but when the bike showed the frame was is good shape but the components were all beat up. I ended up only getting half of what I thought on reselling them.