Can we just agree on what NOS means please!

[stefanano57]

 

[trailstar82]

Built up and ridden <100 “test miles” (because test miles aren’t real miles) equals NEW

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/11588864...YWnPjnRT0m&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

 

[Vesatoro]

To be fair to the seller, 'NOSish' is a pretty fair and honest description of that chain set: not NOS but close to NOS. The description explains that it's been pulled from a show bike so at least the seller isn't trying to mislead buyers by claiming, as others might have done, that it's an NOS item.

To me NOS is not a definition of condition, but a definition of status. NOS component can have marks from storage, for example staying 20 years at the window of a shop in direct sunlight. However "mint" can be used, if only fitted to a bike, but without basically any marks other that made at factory. Used/mint can therefore be in better condition than NOS.

 

[MattiThundrrr]

Built up and ridden <100 “test miles” (because test miles aren’t real miles) equals NEW

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/11588864...YWnPjnRT0m&var=&widget_ver=artemis&media=COPY

Still a virgin? I only "tested" her once

 

[FluffyChicken]

All that stretching on the flanges from the nipple tension on the spokes.
As you say still a Virgin...

Does not make like new..
And 100 miles is probably more than most RetroBike's actually do in a year, or on a bike at all ;-)

 

[trailstar82]

 

[CassidyAce]

To me NOS is not a definition of condition, but a definition of status. NOS component can have marks from storage, for example staying 20 years at the window of a shop in direct sunlight. However "mint" can be used, if only fitted to a bike, but without basically any marks other that made at factory. Used/mint can therefore be in better condition than NOS.

That's a very good point. To my mind, 'NOS' is being understood as an absolute or non-gradable term, meaning that an item cannot be more NOS or less NOS, it either is or is not NOS. The word 'unique' is often used as an example of a non-gradable term: things are unique or are not, but they cannot be more unique or less unique. However, perhaps 'vertical' is a better example here: if a line is vertical, it cannot be made more vertical or less vertical; it either is or is not vertical. But that is not to say that non-vertical lines cannot be more or less close to vertical. A line that is one degree off vertical is closer to being vertical than a line that is forty-five degrees off. In other words, although there might not be degrees of NOS there can be degrees of proximity to NOS. It's not black and white; it's black and shades of grey, and some of those shades of grey are closer to black than others.

In this case, as a show bike, the whole bike could be sold as 'NOS'—no one seems to dispute that—but the individual parts, if taken off the bike, could not. Surely, then, whether a condition or a status, the part in question is close to NOS; hence 'NOS-ish', close-to-but-not-quite-NOS. 'Mint' probably would have been better but I still don't think that the seller was misleading.

 

[The History Man]

NSAS- Never seen a spanner. That’s gradable dependent on packaging and storage conditions etc.

 

[BerthaPog]

NSAS- Never seen a spanner. That’s gradable dependent on packaging and storage conditions etc.

True, but they went full on with the mole grips.

 

[Stressed]

Uh-oh
https://www.retrobike.co.uk/threads/these-xlite-bar-ends-dont-see-many.471732/#post-3493589"There is a tiny mark on the inside of one clamp where it has been trial fitted to a bar."