To me, a man's "legendary" status isn't as important as his honesty.

I have been burned but some 'legends,' and I have gotten great dogs from nobodies. Toward the end of my buying career, I only bought dogs that I legitimately knew how they were bred, not because someone "told me" how they were bred. The dogs I would buy today would only be of my own breedings, that I know for 100% certainty how they're bred and what to expect.

At this point, most people couldn't give me one of their dogs, let alone me pay $1000 for it, but if I really liked a particular dog and I also like its ped (and if I had the depth of knowledge to be sure that's how it was bred), I wouldn't sweat the papers. If I didn't have personal knowledge of the breeding behind the dog, then I would have to knew the man well enough to know he was a straight shooter.

So, again, some "legend" that I don't personally know couldn't give me a dog. However, if I knew him, and trusted him, and he had a real nice dog with no papers that I really wanted, I wouldn't care about the papers. The papers are only as good as the man's word anyway, so I have to trust "that word" above all else.

Jack