I just received a pair of used, low use Sophia Royal Princess 300B's. When they arrived the box looked fine and the triple packing was excellent but I heard rattling. Not good...
As it turns out both tubes were damaged and in exactly the same way. There are two main, non electrically conducting, supports for the metal internal structure, both embedded in a central glass support. These two rods are each on the outer most shoulder of the glass base. On each tube one piece of glass had broken off the end/outside shoulder adjacent to the support rod. The rod was still in place and the opposite rod looked intact.
Granted that I have no way of know what kind of abuse the box took it seems to me that there was a weakness there and that there probably should be more, or stronger, glass on those edges.
I am taking the tubes in for testing today to get an opinion on using them. Luckily the seller was a stand-up guy and just refunded my money. The tubes might still work fine however I would never be able to resell them.
