I'm gonna start by saying that this was actually MY FAULT !  I recently came across a 100w /DX , small etch Westy MV lamp advertised as NOS for sale on eBay . WELL , the Philips/Westinghouse HPS sleeve it was in didn't grab my attention as it should have . What DID catch my attention AFTER I made the seller a offer of which they accepted and I paid for it was the seller's photo from the top of the cleartop lamp which CLEARLY SHOWED the well blackeded arctube !!! DOH ! The lamp arrive the other day and surprisingly it DOES work but is dimmer than a 50w MV . DOH ! again !!

 Lesson learned !!! Don't get caught up in finding a "cheap" desireable NOS lamp !! LOOK CLOSELY AND CAREFULLY AT ALL PHOTOS ! I can't blame the seller for this as all was CLEARLY OBVIOUS had I looked carefully , closely and objectively at the seller's photos !

 Before anyone tries to blame the seller , they have NO other lamps for sale so I highly doubt they knew the difference .

Oh wow... yep! This is something I'm usually careful about as well, zooming in on the photos and inspecting as best as I can... which is why I absolutely
HATE when sellers upload those really stupid "this is what the lamp should look like" photos, with the edited white backgrounds. I usually get screwed when
buying from those sellers, ending up receiving a lamp that isn't identical to what the photo shows... which is why I never buy from sellers who upload those kind of photos.
But yeah I've seen a lot of cases where sellers sell well used or possibly even EOL lamps. I try to avoid them at all cost as well lol... unless it's a
well known seller... like Idoovad, for example. I've seen Idoovad upload a couple used fluorescent lamps, but that seller is more than likely a lighting
enthusiast, (whom I've bought from for many years) so I trust his listings, and would gladly buy a used fluorescent lamp, MV, HPS or MH from him.

A better thing for the seller to do in my opinion is to advertise it as “used”.

@WorldwideHIDCollectorUSA, this is very true and a lot of sellers don't do this, even when it's easy to see that the lamp is used.

 I'd say the seller found a lamp in the sleeve and figured like any other person who knows nothing about lights  that it was new . If you know nothing about a HID lamp , how are you gonna know if it's bad or not ?