Keep your horror stories for yourself @lewm if you don’t owm any of those. And BTW the OP cartridge is Technics MM from the 70’s (notorious for softened suspension).
It’s been discussed million times, if you want to try some of the best MM (in perfect condition) from my museum I will be happy to help, you must get rid of this phobia, seriously.
If you travel to Japan you should know it’s a different world when it comes to condition of the rare stuff, even rare records from the 70’s in Japan are like new while in the USA they are VG- with cut corner or saw cut or drill hole in the sleeve. It’s a cultural thing! I would’t buy used cartridge from USA to be honest (and some of them are indeed impossible to find in USA). But I have huge collection of mint cartridges from Japan (those audiophiles know how to handle them), we are talking about Japanese cartridges mostly, but even American Stanton or Pickering are still mint or nos/unused if they are from Japanese collector/audiophile. They are crazy about condition like no other nation (imo) amd I’m excited about it. Better have some Japanese connection to get an access to real gems.
