Originally Posted by Chombi

I usually trust people a bit more if they say......"...never used, but has a bit of shop wear..." So far all the components I bought described by their sellers as such (And I've bought quite a lot of them already) are pretty much what was described by the seller. I also learned through the years that most of the time it's easy enough to clean off the "shop wear" and come up with something just a hair under NOS condition and saving lots of money buying the non-NOS stuff. I figure that I plan to mount as much of the stash I have on project bikes, NOS or not, so why pay NOS prices when one can get the same except for maybe a very few minute scratches here and there, that most likely never be seen/ noticed anyway?
I used to insist on buying just NOS stuff, but ever since the prices for most of them had skyrocketed in the last few years, I just had to figure out alternatives around it and I found that "shop worn items", as long as the "wear" is not so bad (insist on seeing good pics of the item before buying) and serviceable, work out very well for me......
Just my take on the whole NOS thing. Sure I'll still go for NOS when I chance upon a bargain, but I'm not insistent on getting only NOS stuff these days.....