Why so many cut Nordost Odins?

Mulveling- You are correct in theory and I am sure in some circumstances, but I believe that in many cases you are either getting a counterfeit cable or a cable that has been re-terminated under less than optimal circumstances (at best). If the potential buyer is someone who believes that solder type or base metal type or plating thickness or grip pressure (and I take no position on any of those things) matters, then I think you can be nearly certain that you are not getting what it appears to be, a very high end cable at a highly discounted price. OTOH, that is not to say that the cable will not sound great in your system, or even, perhaps "better" than the genuine factory product, since cable interactions are both system dependent and unpredictable.

I do think that Audioquest and some other well-known names have openly used something like your "chop and no box" model. There are one or two retail outlets for AQ cables and wires w/o the "retail" packaging at highly discounted prices, when compared to list.

It is EXTREMELY unwise to buy a cut Nordost cable. I say this as someone who has HAD a cut cable.
Nordost is one state away from me in Massachusetts. I sent my Valhalla in and had Paul look at it. "Too short" he said. Nordost doesn't recomment shorter lengths than 1 meter for sonic reasons. But more than that, they don't recommend anyone else cutting their cables for ANY reason.
I had a Nordost Brahma power cable that I bought. It had been reterminated. Now, I'd owned 4 or 5 Brahmas over the years and knew what to expect (meaning, they wouldn't interfere with clarity or the purity of whatever they were attached to). This cable didn't sound right, so I sent it to Paul, and he heard exactly what I heard. I returned the cable and it was a company who used someone professionally skilled in the cutting of the Brahma. Nonetheless, it was instantly obvious to me that the cable was not sonically identical to other Brahmas.
If you buy one, call Nordost and have Paul check it out to clear it. They are fantastically respectful of their customers on the customer service front!

Thanks for all input. Yes it seems to be risky to buy cut cable if you cant test it in your system and likes it as it is. And it seems that about 75% of all Odins I have been seen are cut. Before that it was cut Valhallas. For years there where many 0.6 m cut Valhallas for sale here i Scandinavia.

Would never buy a cut cable.

original Odins have a wooden block (with engraved logo & serial no.) as well as logo-printed heat-shrink at connectors. sure, these can be "knocked off" - just as it'd be possible to knock off the orig. packaging - if one was determined enough.

one would have to be pretty audacious (& a touch foolhardy) to cut up a multi-thousand dollar cable & potentially risk losing most of its value... short lengths of Odin aren't exactly cheap / flying off the shelves to begin with.