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What’s your understanding of ‘NOS’?

"Reconditioned" often means "We tried and it still works so we cleaned the case".
Yes, I’ve bought such items, I bought an iMac described as refurbished, now in fairness, the outer casing was as good as you will find for a used example, but it was running its fans at full speed more than it should and I wanted to install an SSD, so I opened it... it was the first time it’d been open since it was assembled at the factory.

Rest assured, that if I sell an item as fully serviced or refurbished, it has been. My own Linn Ikemi that I recently acquired and the Genki I recently sold have both had new mechanisms, belts, grease where applicable and every single electrolytic cap on the main board and the power supply replaced with equivalent or better and the case and all parts thoroughly cleaned... basically as close to new as you can get.
 
Can New Old Stock apply to a private seller as well I wonder or is it a trade term meaning it has never been sold.
I bought a couple of Linn 2250 power amps a few years ago that had been bought a few years before that for a system which never materialised... they’d never been opened, the seller unwilling to open them for pics but willing to let the buyer (me) open them on collection to confirm they were genuine, so yes a private seller can sell something as NOS, but I’d want a factory sealed box, otherwise I couldn’t be sure it was really NOS... got an absolute bargain those amps btw, the seller being instant on collection probably limited the market.
 
For me nos means old but unused. In the case of valves id be more interested in actual measurements than some notion of unused and quality unknown.
 
“As new”, “unused”, and old / discontinued. Not “used lightly and with its box”, and certainly not rebadging components or re-sleeving capacitors etc. on eBay. :p
 
Can New Old Stock apply to a private seller as well I wonder or is it a trade term meaning it has never been sold.

No reason why not, if I bought an item say 20 years ago and had never used the item it is NOS but generally NOS could be considered a trade term meaning a product has never been sold.
 
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I wouldn't worry too much about a potentially slightly used tube.
In fact, it is probably better than an unused untested NOS one, I had one of those unexpectedly going off in my Stax amp after a few hours of usage, and it wasn't nice, because it took quite a bit of time time to have it fixed and both tubes needed to be replaced with new matched ones.
 
I wouldn't worry too much about a potentially slightly used tube.
In fact, it is probably better than an unused untested NOS one, I had one of those unexpectedly going off in my Stax amp after a few hours of usage, and it wasn't nice, because it took quite a bit of time time to have it fixed and both tubes needed to be replaced with new matched ones.

Pull tubes can be fine. I imagine the concern is when it's represented, and priced, as NOS but is actually a pull.
 
Agreed. There should be a distinct price difference between NOS (which should still be boxed) and pulls, though the latter can have decades left if they are good small signal valves. I have several Mullard ECC83s of various designs and they all seem within spec even ones I know are from well used equipment.

PS For ECC81s the ‘80s military Mullards Jez has are superb IMO.

PS Jez, happy to take another 5 as trade account payment if you like!
 
Agreed. There should be a distinct price difference between NOS (which should still be boxed) and pulls, though the latter can have decades left if they are good small signal valves. I have several Mullard ECC83s of various designs and they all seem within spec even ones I know are from well used equipment.

PS For ECC81s the ‘80s military Mullards Jez has are superb IMO.

PS Jez, happy to take another 5 as trade account payment if you like!

Can do. I'll be posting some to "JTC" around the end of the week when I'm next going to PO with repairs etc to post so I'll send them then.
 
Can New Old Stock apply to a private seller as well I wonder or is it a trade term meaning it has never been sold.

I would think not as "new" means "not been sold". Demonstration items cant be sold as "new" either since they have been used, but they can be sold with warrenty from the maker it seems? So "new" means "not been sold or used". What about checking to see if it is ok, by a dealer - then that should be said? I have sometimes bought NOS bike bits where one, cycle cranks had clearly been pulled from a bike as the bottom bracket spindle had left marks, presumably it was on a new bike and the buyer wanted some thing different, but other wise was mint and unused. So thats some thing to add to NOS - "not been sold or used and normally mint"
 
The only assurance you can have that something is NOS is tamper-proof sealed packaging. Anything else is dependent on the honesty of the seller and your own visual assessment once you have taken delivery.
 
Anything else is dependent on the honesty of the seller and your own visual assessment once you have taken delivery.

When you are dealing with 50+ year old valves there is often no way of telling, e.g. I have a fair tube-stash, lots in their correct boxes, some are NOS, some I’ve used for a while, all are in good condition and test new or close to that. When I’m dead and gone whoever ends up with them certainly won’t know which are which! As such unless the source is well documented, e.g. a huge purchase from the military of sealed crates of 500 or whatever valves really all you can do is look at condition/measurement and try to predict. I prefer the term ‘likely NOS, measures 100%’ or whatever as there are often just too many gaps in provenance to know for sure.
 


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