"New & Sealed" sets on Bricklink are a scam. Change my mind

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

I recently bought some "New & Sealed" sets on BrickLink from several sellers, including one with over 99.9% positive feedback on thousands of orders.

Check out the photos of this "New & Sealed" 8455 set that I purchased from said seller (whom I will not reveal):

OVERSIZED IMAGES REMOVED

I can't prove that the parts bags aren't genuine although the other flaws are indisputable. Even though the parts all seem to work, this seems like a ripoff considering that I paid over $150 extra for this "New & Sealed" set supposedly sold by its original owner, instead of buying a used set that was honestly described as "Used" rather than "New & Sealed".

Other recent Bricklink experiences:

1. I bought a "New" instruction booklet for a set from a different seller with 99.8% positive feedback on over 1,000 orders. It was described as "New" yet when I received it, it was warped with obvious water damage and smelled like mold, and the pages were falling out. The description said some of the glue was weak but it said nothing about the water damage or mold odor.
2. I bought various Technic parts described as "New". They did not come in any Lego packaging and one of them has a heavily dented corner despite weighing almost nothing. I received that one from a third seller with thousands of orders and over 99.9% positive feedback, and it was wrapped in multiple layers of thick bubble wrap so clearly it was a used part to begin with.
3. I bought a new (not sealed) 8674 set from the same seller as this 8455 set. It came with no instructions and some of the parts are embossed with the Lego logo, while others are not and look like they came from this Chinese copy.

Does no one open their "New & Sealed" Bricklink sets? How does no one else seem to notice this stuff?

It seems like you can fake a "New & Sealed" set fairly easily by buying a mix of Alibaba and secondhand Lego parts, cleaning used parts with hydrogen peroxide, using a bag sealing machine to seal them in some random plastic bags (after grouping them sensibly), and scanning the original print and cut them onto an empty decal sheet before cutting them. Then, you just buy an original Lego box in decent shape and an original instruction booklet, put all of the "sealed parts" and "original decals" in the box, and sell the set as "New & Sealed" on Bricklink. Granted, this would require investing in the right equipment but it seems doable and financially worthwhile for repeated sales of the pricier classic Technic sets. Or, perhaps more profitably: you simply buy an incomplete set with sealed parts at a heavy discount, and then buy whatever it's missing on BrickLink (in this case, seemingly the rear tires and the pneumatic hoses). But then since many "New" parts etc on BrickLink are just cleaned and bagged secondhand items, you can complete the set with secondhand parts, box, and/or instructions. Then you sell the set on Bricklink as "New & Sealed" and get >99% positive feedback, with sufficient diligence.

DISCLAIMER: I have bought some "New & Sealed" sets on BrickLink that seem to be correctly described. But then I also had the experiences described above.

 

EDIT: my captions are missing but you can see that the rear tires are dirty, scratched, and obviously heavily used, especially in contrast to the front ones. The uneven reapplication of tape on the very dirty pneumatic hoses shows that they also seem to be used. Each of the parts bags is different; the first one is covered with text but has no mention of Lego whatsoever, the second one has no text at all, and the third is heavily perforated with no text.

Edited January 22 by Milan
Removed oversized images

[Milan]

@recovering_from_dark_ages 

Welcome to EB.

I have moved your topic to the General forum, and removed your very oversized images.
Make sure to read site rules about the allowed image size.
Feel free to link the images once they are of the allowed size.

Thanks.

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

Every time I try to fix a typo in my post, something deletes my photos. This sentence should read as follows:

It seems like you can fake a "New & Sealed" set fairly easily by buying a mix of Alibaba and secondhand Lego parts, cleaning used parts with hydrogen peroxide, using a bag sealing machine to seal them in some random plastic bags (after grouping them sensibly), and scanning and printing the original decals onto an empty decal sheet before cutting them.

17 minutes ago, Milan said:

@recovering_from_dark_ages 

Welcome to EB.

I have moved your topic to the General forum, and removed your very oversized images.
Make sure to read site rules about the allowed image size.
Feel free to link the images once they are of the allowed size.

Thanks.

Where are the rules posted about the image size requirements? I just searched the site for that and didn't find them. Seems a bit sus tbh, as though you are protecting some Bricklink sellers from your site users potentially seeing my high-res photos. Posting smaller photos will make this set's flaws less visible.

[Milan]

10 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Where are the rules posted about the image size requirements? I just searched the site for that and didn't find them.

You can find it in our Site Guidelines.
There is a link in my signature, or in the main part of the forum, together with other information and help topics.

 

10 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Seems a bit sus tbh, as though you are protecting some Bricklink sellers from your site users potentially seeing my high-res photos. Posting smaller photos will make this set's flaws less visible.

It also seems a bit sus not to read the rules, to which you agreed to by joining, tbh.
We are protecting our members who do not have high speed Internet at all times.
You can always post high-res images as links.
But images that are showed here, must be the allowed size.

 

[Aurorasaurus]

10 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Seems a bit sus tbh, as though you are protecting some Bricklink sellers from your site users potentially seeing my high-res photos

Milan says the exact same thing to everyone who posts oversized images when he sees it. Upload the images to bricksafe, link a low res preview and have a link to the page with the full res images for people to click on.

Sorry to hear about your bad experiences, sometimes that's just the way it goes.

Edited January 22 by Aurorasaurus
Fix quoted text

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

Ok. Perhaps it's easiest if I just post a link to my Reddit post, then, since it already has all of the photos and they're formatted nicely with captions: 

 

Edited January 22 by recovering_from_dark_ages
Duplicate links

[Mylenium]

2 hours ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Check out the photos of this "New & Sealed" 8455 set that I purchased from said seller (whom I will not reveal):

I checked your images and as the many people on Reddit already said, there appears to be nothing wrong. I can't vouch for the foil bags, since that was before my time, but the rest seems fair & square. From others mentioning this I know that retailers would reinforce the seals with extra tape since they were very flimsy back then and given the age of the set they may simply have come off and covering them may be a well-intentioned attempt to preserve them. Your tires are also not used. They are simply old. "Blooming" is a common occurrence with synthetic rubber, since Butyl/ Butadien and Styrene are stabilized with Sulfur, Fluorites or other chemicals that over time simply react with the Oxygene in the air. The differences in the small and big tires are likely simply LEGO's usual quality issues with inconsistent mixing of the ingredients and other factors.

Mylenium

[MAB]

I think you are jumping to a lot of conclusions. The perforated bag looks genuine, as they were used at the time. For a 20+ year old set, rubber tyres can have some degradation whether used or not. They get a sort of white bloom on them in some cases. Some larger sets with flip open sides had a tape in the middle to stop the box opening. I don't have this set, so cannot check. A lot of their non-system product at the time was hand packed so errors of taping the tube are not that surprising.

I'm not going to change your mind though. If you think bricklink is a scam, then don't use it.

[Sebeus I]

I am typically not interested in "new and sealed" sets. Mostly because of the crazy prices they go for. If it's for opening and building (which I believe it should always be but that's just my opinion), I don't see why "used" isn't good enough.

Nevertheless, I do agree that, when labeled "new" you must be able to expect a higher quality.

On another note, someone once suggested to me that, these super expensive sealed sets are probably never opened anyway. He then proposed a scam where one would collect the boxes of such sets and fill them with fake brand bricks and some paper, then seal them and sell them at the market price . Ever since I heard that Idea I'm much more suspicious when it comes to sealed sets .

[zinnn]

Just saw your Reddit thread, the back tires look AWFUL, I'd be annoyed as well to be honest.

Not sure about the bags used, I think Lego was using various bags at the time, I can be wrong, I was a kid so memory is hazy.

[SpacePolice89]

Back then both types of bags were used depending on the machine in the factory. I have myself bought several new unopened sets from Bricklink (sets from the 80s and 90s) and they have all been great. Because Bricklink consists of thousand of different sellers there is always a small risk risk when buying but the sellers with good reviews are almost always trustworthy. I've also had some problems with some old new tires. Some of the flat racing ones can become very sticky with age. 

[sm1995]

I don’t know enough to say if this is truly NIB or not, but the bottom line is paying a premium for a 20+ year old set for sealed and new in box set doesn’t mean much given expected material degradation over time (especially since we don’t know how this was stored), and is probably not worth it. 

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

6 hours ago, MAB said:

I think you are jumping to a lot of conclusions. The perforated bag looks genuine, as they were used at the time. For a 20+ year old set, rubber tyres can have some degradation whether used or not. They get a sort of white bloom on them in some cases. Some larger sets with flip open sides had a tape in the middle to stop the box opening. I don't have this set, so cannot check. A lot of their non-system product at the time was hand packed so errors of taping the tube are not that surprising.

I'm not going to change your mind though. If you think bricklink is a scam, then don't use it.

Did you look at the second photo in my Reddit post, showing the rear and front tires together? The rear tires are heavily scratched and discolored, and very dirty with small hairs on them. The front tires have none of those characteristics and look like new. I still own some of my Technic sets that I built in the 1990's and that were new at the time, and I know what heavily used tires look like. There's simply no way that anyone could consider those rear tires to be new and I find it concerning that several accounts (seemingly from Lego and/or Bricklink shills) are adamantly claiming that they're new.

I read recently that Lego owns Bricklink, which may understand why I'm seeing so many delusional posts rushing to defend a set that obviously isn't legitimately "New & Sealed".

14 minutes ago, sm1995 said:

I don’t know enough to say if this is truly NIB or not, but the bottom line is paying a premium for a 20+ year old set for sealed and new in box set doesn’t mean much given expected material degradation over time (especially since we don’t know how this was stored), and is probably not worth it. 

I'm inclined to agree that the premium for "New & Sealed" is definitely not worth it. "New" with thorough photos can be worth it. I have bought some "New & Sealed" classic Technic sets that seem to be exactly described, but the overall defect rate in terms of used or non-genuine parts in some "New & Sealed" sets is just too high to justify the price premium for anyone but a foolish investor who doesn't closely inspect the sets and then may struggle to resell them. It certainly isn't worth it for a builder like me who just wants the experience of building a missed set from his Lego dark ages as new.

Edited January 22 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[MAB]

9 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Did you look at the second photo in my Reddit post, showing the rear and front tires together? The rear tires are heavily scratched and discolored, and very dirty with small hairs on them. The front tires have none of those characteristics and look like new. I still own some of my Technic sets that I built in the 1990's and that were new at the time, and I know what heavily used tires look like. There's simply no way that anyone could consider those rear tires to be new and I find it concerning that several accounts (seemingly from Lego and/or Bricklink shills) are adamantly claiming that they're new.

 

I cannot see hairs on them, but it may be that the photo is not showing what you see up close. The scratching and discolouring could be due to what they have been next to in the box.  Similarly, the "hairs" could be paper or card dust from inside the box. The edges of instruction manuals when cut often have thin paper filaments that could stick to decades old rubber. I'm also not surprised that the different sets of wheels have aged differently. Different thicknesses, slightly different materials, they age differently but similar to the other ones the same. Remember that these were nto meant to be stored away for decades and rubber degrades even when kept in a sealed box.

Just because someone doesn't agree with you does not mean that they are a shill.

14 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

I read recently that Lego owns Bricklink, which may understand why I'm seeing so many delusional posts rushing to defend a set that obviously isn't legitimately "New & Sealed".

Again, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean that they are delusional. It means they have a different experience to you and may well have come across many similar parts in newly opened old sets. In the past I've opened sealed 1970s sets where the small tyres have looked like they have almost melted, being quite flat on one side, presumable from being in the position in the box and not moved for years or where the tyres have been quite sticky. But again, they were not meant to be stored for 40+ years before opening them. It is a risk you take when buynig new sealed sets.

 

 

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

39 minutes ago, MAB said:

I cannot see hairs on them, but it may be that the photo is not showing what you see up close. The scratching and discolouring could be due to what they have been next to in the box.  Similarly, the "hairs" could be paper or card dust from inside the box. The edges of instruction manuals when cut often have thin paper filaments that could stick to decades old rubber. I'm also not surprised that the different sets of wheels have aged differently. Different thicknesses, slightly different materials, they age differently but similar to the other ones the same. Remember that these were nto meant to be stored away for decades and rubber degrades even when kept in a sealed box.

Just because someone doesn't agree with you does not mean that they are a shill.

Again, just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean that they are delusional. It means they have a different experience to you and may well have come across many similar parts in newly opened old sets. In the past I've opened sealed 1970s sets where the small tyres have looked like they have almost melted, being quite flat on one side, presumable from being in the position in the box and not moved for years or where the tyres have been quite sticky. But again, they were not meant to be stored for 40+ years before opening them. It is a risk you take when buynig new sealed sets.

 

 

I've added another two pics to the bottom of my Reddit post. The last one shows the box contents and that this was a very roomy box for everything to tumble around. As I said in my Reddit post, it makes zero sense for the rear tires to be so dirty and scratched while the fronts look new, given than the rear tires are made of harder and less sticky rubber. So your argument about the tires doesn't apply in this case. And yes, rubber degrades over time but without heavy use, that doesn't cause tons of deep and uneven scratches plus dirt, even though it may cause some discoloration.

Edited January 22 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[MAB]

12 minutes ago, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

I've added another two pics to the bottom of my Reddit post. The last one shows the box contents and that this was a very roomy box for everything to tumble around. As I said in my Reddit post, it makes zero sense for the rear tires to be so dirty and scratched while the fronts look new, given than the rear tires are made of harder and less sticky rubber. So your argument about the tires doesn't apply in this case. And yes, rubber degrades over time but without heavy use, that doesn't cause tons of deep and uneven scratches plus dirt, even though it may cause some discoloration.

To me it does make sense that the tires are a bit dirty. They are a couple of decades old and have been stored rubbing up against other tyres, parts, cardboard and paper. That dirt looks like a combination of paper and rubber bloom. The paper fibres are most obvious on the black tubing. That really looks like the tiny fibres of paper it would have picked up when it rubs against the edges of the manual and inside the cardboard box. Remember those manuals were probably cut with a guillotine style cutter that leaves lots of little fragments that will fall off when the contents of the box shift. Scratches occur when the box is moved and the rubber tires rub against the digger bucket. The dirt is on the edges and treads, whereas if used then the dirt would be on the treads and there would be proper wear of the rubber. Dirt on edges is consistent with rubbing against parts and bags as it shifts inside the box whereas wear on the tread would be consistent with use.

For its age, I'd say that box was pretty decent condition. The tab looked genuine and there are no tears on the box near where it should be.

It seems you are not that knowledgeable about vintage sets. You didn't know about the tape around the hoses, the way boxes with flap lids were sealed, the way that numbering for bags was only introduced later, perforated bags, you didn't know about the lego logo not being on all parts, ... You should prbably familiarise yourself with one of the bricklink rules about new and sealed sets: Sealed - Set is brand new, with unopened factory seals intact, all inner bags and contents presumably sealed, intact, complete and untampered with as shipped by the manufacturer. The seller cannot guarantee that a sealed set is complete. Note that the seller cannot guarantee contents of the set if it is sealed. To do so, they'd have to open it. Similarly, they cannot tell you the condition of the parts inside or the effect of aging if it is still as originally sealed and not tampered with (which this one appears to be).

You are probably best off sticking to modern new sets from retailers or second hand sets rather than buying vintage new/sealed sets.

[Toastie]

2 hours ago, MAB said:

You are probably best off sticking to modern new sets from retailers or second hand sets rather than buying vintage new/sealed sets.

I really agree with @MAB on this. I am leaning towards the latter - as the saying goes: "Only used LEGO is good LEGO". But "sealed" + vintage ... = expensive + who knows what time, physics and chemistry have done to the parts inside. And these three suckers can accomplish a lot - particularly, when they gang up.

Best
Thorsten 

[JesseNight]

I think buying MISB is only good if you are a collector intending to keep it that way.
If you wish to open and use it, you end up paying premium and it won't ever be truly "new" when it's decades old. Like people already said, degradation over time remains a thing and you never know how it was stored.

Don't blame Bricklink, that's only a medium on which lots of sellers sell their items. Where there's a lot of sellers, there are always scams and ripoffs too (not saying this is one, just saying they exist).
One more tip: don't look solely at the % of positive feedback, but also the amount. If a seller has 100% positive but only 10 feedbacks, it can just be family/friends, or very old feedbacks of purchases they made rather than sales. BL is a pretty good medium if you ask me to know what you're getting into, but there's always a small risk that's obviously our own to take.

Edited January 22 by JesseNight

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

8 hours ago, MAB said:

To me it does make sense that the tires are a bit dirty. They are a couple of decades old and have been stored rubbing up against other tyres, parts, cardboard and paper. That dirt looks like a combination of paper and rubber bloom. The paper fibres are most obvious on the black tubing. That really looks like the tiny fibres of paper it would have picked up when it rubs against the edges of the manual and inside the cardboard box. Remember those manuals were probably cut with a guillotine style cutter that leaves lots of little fragments that will fall off when the contents of the box shift. Scratches occur when the box is moved and the rubber tires rub against the digger bucket. The dirt is on the edges and treads, whereas if used then the dirt would be on the treads and there would be proper wear of the rubber. Dirt on edges is consistent with rubbing against parts and bags as it shifts inside the box whereas wear on the tread would be consistent with use.

For its age, I'd say that box was pretty decent condition. The tab looked genuine and there are no tears on the box near where it should be.

It seems you are not that knowledgeable about vintage sets. You didn't know about the tape around the hoses, the way boxes with flap lids were sealed, the way that numbering for bags was only introduced later, perforated bags, you didn't know about the lego logo not being on all parts, ... You should prbably familiarise yourself with one of the bricklink rules about new and sealed sets: Sealed - Set is brand new, with unopened factory seals intact, all inner bags and contents presumably sealed, intact, complete and untampered with as shipped by the manufacturer. The seller cannot guarantee that a sealed set is complete. Note that the seller cannot guarantee contents of the set if it is sealed. To do so, they'd have to open it. Similarly, they cannot tell you the condition of the parts inside or the effect of aging if it is still as originally sealed and not tampered with (which this one appears to be).

You are probably best off sticking to modern new sets from retailers or second hand sets rather than buying vintage new/sealed sets.

You still haven't explained why the rear tires are so dirty and deeply scratched relative to the front tires, despite being made of a harder and less sticky rubber. That's very obviously heavy use only in the rear tires. 50 Reddit upvotes attest to that at this point, so I don't see why one would assert the contrary given the evidence. The set clearly does not meet Bricklink's requirement of being "untampered with as shipped by the manufacturer".

I agree that the outer box condition is good but that's irrelevant. I never questioned the box condition, but only that clear tape was suspiciously applied on top of the box's clear plastic seal so it's obvious that this 8455 set is resealed rather than legitimately "New & Sealed". It certainly does not have "unopened factory seals intact". The outer packing tape was intact, not the factory seal.

I never mentioned bag numbering and that's also totally irrelevant here. For the record, I own 12 Lego Technic sets made between 1995 and 2022, all of which I received new and sealed. None of the parts looked used in my other sets when I received them, including the 8480 and 8485 sets that I bought recently. However, my 8674 set from this seller contains some non-genuine parts as I mentioned in my Reddit post. This 8455 is the only set that has bags that don't seem like genuine Lego bags, aside from the suspicious 8674 set from the same seller. Again, the bag covered in text has no mention of Lego anywhere, and the text is cut off on the top and bottom of the bag. The set's perforated bag is made of thicker plastic and has larger holes than any genuine perforated Lego parts bag in the dozens of Technic and non-Technic Lego sets that I've owned.

5 hours ago, JesseNight said:

I think buying MISB is only good if you are a collector intending to keep it that way.
If you wish to open and use it, you end up paying premium and it won't ever be truly "new" when it's decades old. Like people already said, degradation over time remains a thing and you never know how it was stored.

Don't blame Bricklink, that's only a medium on which lots of sellers sell their items. Where there's a lot of sellers, there are always scams and ripoffs too (not saying this is one, just saying they exist).
One more tip: don't look solely at the % of positive feedback, but also the amount. If a seller has 100% positive but only 10 feedbacks, it can just be family/friends, or very old feedbacks of purchases they made rather than sales. BL is a pretty good medium if you ask me to know what you're getting into, but there's always a small risk that's obviously our own to take.

Yeah I'm well aware of the need to look at the number of feedbacks. As I thought I mentioned in my Reddit post, all three sellers that I mentioned in my list of BrickLink incidents had 1,000+ feedbacks. Two had over 99.9% positive feedback and the other one had 99.8% positive feedback when I bought each item.

I agree that Bricklink itself isn't necessarily bad but since it seems to be commonplace to 1) pass off vintage Technic sets as "new and sealed" that are nothing of the sort and 2) sell cleaned used Technic parts as "new", and 3) Bricklink's buyers either can't tell the difference or Bricklink somehow doesn't include their feedback, the end result is that "new and sealed" vintage sets on Bricklink are often a scam to a discerning buyer. That may not be unique to Bricklink and may be common on Ebay and Amazon sets, although I've had no issues with those so far (in an admittedly much smaller sample size). In the future, I'll prefer "New" over "New & Sealed" sets on Bricklink, as others have suggested.

My latest problem with Bricklink: I paid for an item 2 weeks ago and the seller still hasn't shipped it or even responded after I messaged him last week, so I filed a non-shipping seller (NSS) alert as Bricklink calls it. Based on this incredibly lengthy and unnecessarily complex documentation page, it's not clear to me how I'll get a refund if the seller takes no action within 2 weeks of my filing the NSS alert, at which point my order will be canceled.

Bottom line: none of this benefits Bricklink itself. On the whole, I love that it typically offers sets at cheaper prices than Ebay and Amazon, but I'm beginning to see why. Buyers might be willing to pay more on Bricklink if its marketplace platform improves.

Edited January 23 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[Berthil]

If you find a rotten apple in a basket, it doesn't mean the whole basket is bad. I think it is best you stay in your dark ages and stop nagging about bad looking rear tires, or just buy new sets from the shelf.

[icm]

The saying is one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, but whatever. That's beside the point. This sealed set was in bad shape, but most sealed sets on Bricklink are exactly as described.

[Berthil]

19 minutes ago, icm said:

The saying is one bad apple spoils the whole barrel, but whatever.

Thanks for clarifying that. So one bad Trump makes the whole of USA bad?

I don't think so, indeed one bad sealed set bought at Bricklink doesn't make all 19226 stores at Bricklink bad.

[icm]

WTF? I said nothing political whatsoever. Where in God's green earth are you getting a comment about Trump from what I said, @Berthil?

The adage is, "One bad apple spoils the barrel."

That's it.

This thread has nothing to do with politics, please don't bring them into this.

Edited January 23 by icm

[recovering_from_dark_ages]

To add data here: two of the four "New & Sealed" Technic sets that I've bought on BrickLink had serious flaws, and they were both from the same seller with 99.9% positive feedback and 1,000+ ratings. But yeah, point taken to buy "New" sets with exhaustive photos of their contents instead of "New & Sealed". That's been my main lesson from this and I find it laughable that "New & Sealed" sets typically command higher prices than "New" sets. And there is effectively no difference between "New" and clean "Used" Technic parts on Bricklink from what I'm seeing.

The two sets that I bought from a Lego brick and mortar store and the two that I bought on Ebay (one of which was 8485) are all in great shape and seem to have no flaws; all were legitimately "New & Sealed" when I purchased them. It's also needlessly complex to get a refund on Bricklink when the seller doesn't ship the set after you pay. Anyway, it's become quite clear to me why buyers pay a 20% premium (or more) to buy sets on Amazon and Ebay instead of Bricklink.

In summary, my "New & Sealed" successful purchase rate on Bricklink has been 50% while it's been 100% each on Ebay and from Lego directly. All sets were purchased from top-rated sellers. That's quite a bad record on Bricklink.

Edited January 23 by recovering_from_dark_ages

[JesseNight]

@recovering_from_dark_ages It sounds to me like you just had a stroke of bad luck, sorry. And a lot of it just comes down to whomever you end up dealing with. I've had good experiences, with sellers who documented their orders really well and small mistakes (that can happen) were corrected properly.
I have no experience with BL's own customer protection if things go wrong or orders don't get delivered. But I can tell you, even with eBay's and Amazon's good reputation, I've had my share of bad experiences there too. Especially with eBay, I don't think I'll ever use that platform again (but that's a different story that doesn't belong here).

That being said... I think if you want new sets in mint condition you have to consider recent stuff you buy in regular stores. "New & sealed" on an old set only means it hasn't been opened, there will still be wear and some parts are more sensitive to that than others. Depends strongly on material, time of production, and storage conditions. And there may indeed be some rare cases of sellers who try to repack and reseal stuff as new to boost value, but they usually won't last long on a platform with strict regulations.
 

On 1/22/2025 at 7:44 AM, recovering_from_dark_ages said:

Does no one open their "New & Sealed" Bricklink sets? How does no one else seem to notice this stuff?

I seriously doubt it. Most "new & sealed" stuff is bought by collectors with the intention of keeping it sealed for the value.
Someone who plans on using it will rather find a used set that's complete and in good condition, that they can inspect out of the box or on detailed photos, and that still costs a lot less.

Edited January 23 by JesseNight