I don't really think it matters that much, as long as all of the correct pieces are there, and that the unit is clean and tested. Yes, the seller should have mentioned some of this in his listing, but in the end, I don't think it is really going to make that much of a difference. My original thoughts still stand. I think the unit he has for sale is overvalued; by how much? I don't know. And, yet, someone will undoubtedly place a bid on it thinking it is far more valuable than it is.
DumbQuestionDuJour; I had to piece mine together a bit too. IMHO you are correct in your assumption. By taking what he deemed as the best parts of two units and building one for sale, he may have hurt the overall value. People are smart, so those like you, and many others out there, will find these listings and put two and two together. Really though, it just comes down to what someone is willing to pay for something that is turning out to be not all that rare. I paid only $40.00 for mine. Then I bought a controller and a couple of hard drives through members of VCF and still paid less than $100.00 all together, plus shipping, which came to just over $75.00. All totalled, I have just over $180.00 in my expansion unit. But then again, I got very lucky.
Does it matter that I had to buy a MiniScribe drive and Xebec controller, then add a CDC drive and swap the controller for a WD? Personally, I don't think so. I still have the original parts the expansion unit came with. There are no individualized serial numbers to indicate that the drive I have installed is the one that came with the unit, or somewhere else. If I want to sell my expansion, I could easily do so as being all original and authentic because all of the parts that were there when the expansion unit was new, are still present and accounted for, including the extender and receiver cards and connecting cable. To me, that's what really matters. To someone else though; well...
Interesting listing.
Do vintage computer buffs care whether something is completely original or cobbed together from various units? Because if you look at this seller's feedback as a buyer, it's clear that this unit was pieced together from two separate ones that he bought. The scratch on the case of one unit matches the scratch on the case of a drive-less unit (but one with working motherboard and power supply) that he bought just last week for $100 as a "Buy It Now" item.
The seller also bought a 1501492 controller about three weeks ago, and an ST-412 w/Xebec controller about seven weeks ago, and also a bunch of slot covers, so maybe the shiny ones aren't original? The seller also has a second listing for miscellaneous 5161 parts that must have been the leftovers after he had assembled everything. Since I'm not a collector myself I have no clue whether this affects the value, but if I were the seller, I surely would have mentioned that it wasn't an all-original unit.
Or does that actually not matter?