Nashbar has had a few other "high-end" offerings before, didn't they once sell a lot of the Bob Jacksons in the US (or was that another mail-order house)?...and Performance (now owned by the same parent as Nashbar) used to sell "Pogliaghi" frames, but like these Ciocc they were built by the later owners, in that case it was Rossin or Basso (for these Ciocc it's Conti).
In my mind it's not that much different from other bike industry practices, Nashbar just negotiated a deal and are acting as importer and sales...maybe Ciocc/Conti over-estimated the demand and over-produced, maybe Nashbar just got a "marketing brain bubble".
That eBay Ciocc is the real-deal: made by Pelizzoli himself and looks like a pretty good restro job (at least in pictures), but I have one little nit to pick: this era San Cristobal would not have used those "rasta" color decals...they came in later....and I'd ask to see a close-up of the brake bridge to make sure it didn't have the TSD logo.