May have been the case for the buyer but there were many others that would have spotted it's potential and bid against him accordingly.
Anything advertised as unpressed, as the mound city books were, will be reviewed very carefully for potential.
Some were successful in getting upgrades after pressing others didn't.
If you followed the MCA auction threads in General last November it's really no secret that I bought that book at MCA for a buyer who wanted to remain anonymous . Cheetah is right in that the book was not purchased as an upgrade candidate. In fact many knowledgeable potential buyers that saw the book in hand at MCA didn't think the book had any upgrade potential at all. The price that the book was bid up to was what several people thought a CGC 9.4 should sell for.
Considering that CGC 9.0 copies were selling in the $28K - $33K range (check your GPA) months before the MCA CGC 9.4 copy sold, and that would have put 9.2 copies in the $50-60K range where they are now, I think it's fair to say that the CGC 9.4 sold at what was considered a "fair" price at the time.