C W Burfle posted:Tabs, stakes and rivets provide a practical way to signal the potential of a restoration or alteration, but do not guarantee it. Repair and maintenance is not restoration. Taking something apart and putting it back together is not the same as substantive alteration and restoration. Along the same lines, swapping a boiler/ part/ chassis between locomotives of similar patina, once completed, allows for no practical method of identification of originality of the assemblage.
If an item has been disassembled to the point of disturbing tabs, staking or rivets, then as far as I am concerned the item really cannot grade very high as a collectors item, and isn't likely to be something I'd be interested in owning as such. It might make a great piece for operating. (I have both).
To each their own.
