@RSJB18: I bought an item listed as "Undecorated / Unfinished" in the 3rd auction and it specifically said "no motors / parts" in the auction listing. It had no motor or PS2 board, but it had all of the externally applied detail parts which a big deal for me.
I realize that these are auctions of non-retail parts and everything needs to be carefully considered before bidding. However, I have noticed several things on the items that might give clues as to its overall readiness or operability.
MTH clearly had some sort of internal process to bring a new piece from design on paper to final product. As with most engineering and manufacturing processes, there are several "milestone" steps along the way. MTH has marked many of these items directly on the product or on the packaging in similar ways which MIGHT lead to the conclusion that these things are in similar states of readiness / completion:
For example, these all appear in MTH's handwritten notes visible in many of the phots and are NOT simply a description offered by the auction house:
- Pilot Sample
- Prototype
- Engineering Sample
- Production Sample
- Photography Sample
I'm guessing that MTH's internal procedures had a specific meaning for writing those words on the boxes.
In my line of work, the most "complete" would be a "production sample", which we would refer to as a part randomly takes out of a full-production lot intended for sale to make sure it's up to par. Another clue would be if the original box is included, which means that it's more likely (though not guaranteed) that it came from a lot that was finished to packaging. Beware, though...several of the auction items show "OB" but the box is clearly mismatched and is a clue that maybe not a true production sample.
Next level down in my guess would be "prototype" which indicates the first real completed version of a new product, before full production, in order to find out what bugs to work out. I would wager that these typically have some working guts of one type or another, although it may be clunky and they may have raided prototypes for parts for warranty work down the line. So still no guarantee.
Then would be "Engineering Sample" which might indicate that they ran a part to check a specific design feature and, unless the sample was taken to test operating functions, is likely not ready to run.
"Photography Sample" : beats me...I'm guessing minimal guts and just a shell to look nice in photos for ads and stuff.
Then there are descriptions of items that Cabin Fever uses that don't necessarily have any meaning from MTH like
- Unfinished
- Undecorated (This description was used a lot in the 3rd auction, much less this time around)
- Unpainted
I don't think these are as helpful,. especially without additional written context in the auction listing. But with thousands of parts to get rid of, I don't blame Cabin Fever for having a pretty limited descriptor attached to each listing.
These are all my guesses only. But it's another level of clues that I used to determine whether I bid on an item or not. Interesting note this time around: in the 3rd auction @Cabin Fever Auctions included a line in most of the loco listings indicating whether motors or guts were present or not. In this auction, I don't see any of that. Also, previous auctions generally showed more complete underside photos so you could get a glimpse of what components were installed and maybe help decide if there were enough guts in the loco to place a bid. This time around, full underside photos still exist, but strangely absent from many listings and fewer contextual clues as to the completeness of an item. Wonder if Cabin fever did that on purpose, figuring they might get higher bids on locos if people still had to guess about their completeness.
I'm perfectly happy with my "Undecorated" PRR S-1. I've got a thread going about its rebuild here so you can see what went into bringing the "undecorated" item to a working state.
Good luck!
