Yes, had I known in advance about this pattern with people who say they are from Germany or Switzerland, I would have spotted the scam much earlier.

I went back to his emails and yes of course, I had reasons to suspect that something was seriously odd earlier. When he "arrived" at South Africa, his luggage was lost and it is was his camera and his work macbook. I thought it was weird that he would put this stuff in luggage and not in a backpack he took as a carry-on, but it was not an immediate red flag for me as it should have been. Later his luggage was "found" but it was "vandalized" and most stuff missing. And this is how he initially got my postal address:

"It’s pretty sad at this point because the bag missing contained a whole lot of important stuff amongst which are some documents, My MacBook for my work, Camera and of course a beautiful postcard I got for you to be sent when I get here."

so he wanted to send me a postcard and I gave him the address. The "please receive and hold the check for me" came later. So in hindsight I was very gullible and had I known in advance about this scam pattern, I would not have wasted time and become worried for real when his check was sent to a wrong unit number. I still do not know why this scam pattern necessitated sending the check to a wrong address: was it just to make me worried? But at any rate, spotting the pattern would have helped me.