I'll add that NOS in a box may not be all it's supposed to be either.
Old stock may not be good stock. Everyone who was a mechanic in a shop in the 70's and picked through the Campy hubs for the best set raise their hand. Ever switch hubs among the boxes? Ever had a return because they were scratchy? Guess what ends in up in the last "NOS" box on the shelf. The set that goes for over $200 now. Possibly the worse set of 100 passed through the shop.
When I started searching out NOS Campy hubs at shops in the early 90's this was evident.
Joe Bender-Zanoni
Great Notch, NJ
> Sorry if you feel that way, Nick, but it really does happen all the time.
> In the retail business, items that are as new or takeoffs and are not in
> some way special to a particular bike are commonly tossed on the shelf
with
> new stock. (Some manufacturers have parts specially made with unique
> features or branding, and this would not apply, as they are not equivalent
> parts.) If selling the item over the counter, the customer gets handed a
> packaged version. If it's something installed in the shop, and there is a
> "new" one on the shelf without packaging, that's the one that gets
> installed. This is not considered at all dishonest, as long as both parts
> are the same part number and the installed part is in unused, undamaged
> condition. It's just good inventory control. If the customer picked out
a
> specific part, or brought one in and it was substituted, that would be a
> different story. And that also means no tool marks. It's not considered
any
> different from having bulk-packaged parts available for installations and
> boxed versions for over-the-counter sales.
>
> The part that comes to mind where substitution happened most often, when I
> was in the trade, was freewheels. If a customer wanted a freewheel
swapped
> out for a different ratio on a new bike, the one that came from the
> manufacturer went into stock, priced as new. There was typically no charge
> to the customer for the change, if no upgrade was involved, and we were
not
> about to lose money by disparaging our own product as something less than
> new, when it had never been ridden. If you buy an NOS freewheel on eBay
and
> it comes in a box with the size crossed out and a new one written in,
that's
> probably what happened.
>
> --Steve Barner, Bolton, Vermont
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> > Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 18:55:14 -0500
> > From: "nick zatezalo" <nickzz@mindspring.com>
> > To: "Stephen Barner" <steve@sburl.com>,
> > classicrendezvous@bikelist.org
> > Subject: RE: [CR]eBay...and another thing!
> >
> > I have to disagree with your interpretation of new. I do not
> > think that an item that has been installed in any way, shape, or form
> > should be represented as new. To me new is something that may
> > have been out of the package for inspection and then replaced.
> > Maybe a better description is take-off. [As in installed and removed ]
> >
> ---Snip---
> >
> > Nick Zatezalo
> > Atlanta,Ga