Hello all. I am somewhat new to the PM, I signed up a long time ago but haven't spent much time here. I'll try to keep this short. I am a manual machinist of 27 year. My background is Aircraft tooling and prototype work. I cut my teeth in Wichita KS right out of high school and now live in Kila MT. I responded to a craigslist add the other day, the guy had a excellent Wilton bullet vise for a good price. I went to his shop to inspect and purchase the vise. As always a person should ask "what else do you have for sale?" He said he might sell his bridgeport mill. In my neck of the woods there are no "nice machines", I was prepared to see a old used up BP like all the others. To my surprise the thing looked almost new old stock, I would say 95%. It had the ding in the motor cover from someone leaving a wrench on the draw bar and it had two small drill divots in the center of the table. everything else was perfect! It has X and Y power feed...the nice ones! It also has a older DRO on it which is one of the signs to me that is isn't refurbished. I don't think someone would put a way out of date DRO on a newly refurbished machine, especially if they can do it to this degree! The other sign that made me think it was original was the power feed quill is all gummed up from not being used/old grease. The scrapings/ways are all beautiful and shinny. The table is excellent, having only very very minor scratches in a few places and of course the "rookie mistake table divots". I can pick it up for $7500 which is a lot of money but if it is in fact an original-not refurbished BP then I'm all over it! If someone refurbished this thing then my hat if off to them because its beautiful, but i'm not interested in refurbished machines. Can anyone tell me what to look for and where to find signs of refurbishment? It would be very slight things, I looked the machine over for 30 min but I couldn't see anything obvious. It may seam like a silly question but there are some great refurbished machines out there and its hard to tell there not factory new. By the way its a 1996 with the variable speed head. Many Thanks!