Rick Nelson: I feel ya buddy. We've both experienced this often. I evaluate 66 and 67 SS 's all throughout the year. Sometimes for buyers. Sometimes for sellers. Sometimes for both. I very often have to deliver bad news to the owner., the car is not numbers matching. Or the trim tag or vin tag is repro. Deck Pad restamped., etc etc etc. or sometimes just simply explaining the car's value is nowhere what they think!!
I have had experienced everything in terms of response to bad news and usually the strong reactions are a result of so many buyers., currently buying or previously bought... Not having had the car authenticated. They realize how dumb or naive they were to just believe it was what they were told
it's a hard pill to swallow. and they Get Defensive.
A car doesn't have to be a RARE One of Ten or a Copo or Yenko or anything special to have someone evaluate it. Or for it to have been tampered with. We all work hard for our money and if you are about to spend that money, why wouldn't you hire someone to possibly save you from making a financial mistake? People seem to do more Research prior to buying their new flat screen tv than they do on a $60,000 plus car 🤔🤔
I also try to give sellers some slack, even well respected collectors sometimes are selling cars they purchased 15 or 20 years ago that are fakes and they didn't even know it because they didn't do their due dilligence. Again, it's not always the current owner that is to blame for selling a fake, so you have to just do YOUR Homework.
Deep Breaths !!