CED VideoDisc and Player Discussion

[CEDatum]

You are no doubt familiar with Stylus Cartridges and other CED accessory products offered at on-line auctions and described as NOS. A CED hobbyist and associate of CEDatum is a Corporate Attorney and has advised us that NOS -commonly understood to mean NEW OLD STOCK is not a legal definition for some CED items. NEW and OLD are opposing words in a 3 word phrase. The last production of stylus cartridges by RCA was in the mid 1980's. In 2008 ALL cartridges are 20+ years old -certainly NOT NEW ! A description for an unused still sealed box cartridge should be UOS for Unused Original Stock.

The CEDatum Cartridge Rebuild service has received stylus cartridges for repair/rebuild that appear unused . In most cases the fly-lead ( the fine spring that connects the stylus tip to the cartridge body) has collapsed or broken. These cartridges were purchased as "NOS" and did not work out of the sealed box. So caution - if you are looking for a replacement cartridge make sure that seller tests the cartridge before sending it to you or will give you a refund if the cartridge is defective.

John at CEDatum.

[jgantert]

Well, I just picked up a collection with a bunch of styluses, and about 8 are new sealed. I have no intention of opening them since there are about 40 some styluses total. Hopefully the springs are ok in them.

Unfortunately only 3 are the new style (for the 400 series players), the rest are the 149xxx and 151xxx series.

-John

[Jesse Skeen]

How many stylus cartridges were made? Did they keep making them after the players were discontinued? A local TV shop still had a few new ones in 1994 and I bought 2 of them, haven't had to use either yet. When I started collecting CEDs I was worried that watching them too much would wear out the styluses and I'd be unable to replace them, but thankfully that hasn't been a problem at all.
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Videodisc and stereo sound- there's no better value around!

[Rixrex]

NOS (new old stock) has never been used as a specific legal definition in any matters of which I'm aware, but it is a definition that has some substance in regards to sales of obsolete stock. The term was originally used to describe vintage car parts that had been "discovered" on a shelf or backroom of an auto parts store or dealer that were original factory-produced or factory-licensed production parts, such as Delco, Borg-Warner, etc, that were no longer manufactured.

The three-word term, "new old stock", is an anacronism of sorts as stated, with the words new and old having opposite meanings and sitting right next to each other. However, the term is actually a truncated version of the original term, which was "newly found old stock". It's commonly understood to mean this amongst vintage car enthusiasts and others who use the term.

Basically, if a seller advertises something as NOS, they are saying it is original factory stock that has never been used, but may have been sitting for many, many years. That's okay for many types of car parts, but not always so great for electronics. To buy NOS is a gamble of sorts. The NOS item may not be in prime condition, but it most likely is alright. If a seller states NOS, but the item is used then that's false, and fraudulent in my opinion. If the packaging is open, then the term still might be correct, but it would be suspect, and I wouldn't pay an NOS price for it.

So far I have had no trouble with any of the styli I have purchased as NOS, but I'd be concerned about other electronic items that can degrade over time from heat and/or humidity.