Cartridge new or used ?

never used for me

@daveyf hey, you can't buy even a brand new cartridge according to your own thread, so why should we discusse a used ones with you ? 

The picture i have posted is what people can see when they buy a used cartridge, in most cases that quality of picture is not available from normal listings on ebay from the most of the sellers. 

The Audio-Techica micro line diamond is the closest to the cutter stylus, but that's the best stylus for minimum record wear, same with Replicant-100 or F.Gyger. Those profiles can be used for up to 2000 hours. Those almost brand new diamonds looks "sharp" to my eyes, but another poster said they don't have to be sharp. 

When an audiophile with a nice set up playing with one of the 5-10 cartridges from his collection for about 200 hrs or even 600 hrs there is still plenty of life left if the stylus profile if it's is not Conical or Elliptical, but a MicroLine, MicroRidge, F.Gyger, Replicant-100 etc. Any honest audiophile will tell a buyer also about condition of the damper (if there is any problem). 

In my opinion some audiophiles on this forum know much more about cartridges, tonearm, turntables than ANY dealer in the modern High-End saloon or any reviewer in some fancy audio Mags.   

For most of the people on here (except you) there is no problem to buy a new cartridge for whatever price. 

But the problem with decent vintage cartridge is the rarity, so even you you really want it you can't find it. But when you can find a NOS is something special for us, but not for you.  

chakster, this weekend I was gifted a mint ADC XLM  cart with with 4 new
stylus , a MkII, 2  MkIII and another XLM at 65x 10 compliance , tone soundsgood , what do you think !

chakster, if you don’t believe me, read what stevecham wrote above. Your ’advice’ is going to result in folks damaging their LP’s...unfortunately. . As i stated before, I am certain yours are damaged beyond repair at this point, as your vintage stylus is nice and sharp!!!LMAO! But, that’s ok, keep on with the great ’advice’, :0(

@clearthink, 

Your analogy of 'used underwear' smells a bit funny and frankly makes no sense. Stylus wear from normal use is very gradual, so with previously owned 'modern' cartridges the risk of damaging your records is negligable. It seems to me some people are way too sensitive about this.

Perhaps I don't take this so seriously because 99,9% of my vinyl collection consists of previously owned records, originating from the 50's, 60's and 70's. Any idea what normal people in those days used as 'turntables'? I remember our own family record player, one of those ugly jobs with a plastic 'tonearm' you had to pull to the right in order to start the 'motor'. It had some sort of headpiece (where we now expect to see a cartridge) that came equipped with the facility of 'flipping' over the stylus after a certain number of hours of play (these were sapphire you see, not diamond). You were also supposed to manually bring the stylus into the groove, preferably without dropping it. Armlift? Tracking force gauge? Yeah right. I even remember a coin attached to the headpiece to get sufficient (5 gram? 10 gram? nobody knew or cared) downforce to keep the stylus in the groove. 

It's really a miracle so many copies actually survived these crude devices and the 'non-audiophile' lifestyles that usually came with it. Not only that, we cherish them for amazing sound quality even the best audiophile reissues cannot approach. Are you really worried these records will be damaged from being played by a slightly worn modern diamond stylus with some advanced profile?