New Old Stock, a term given to spare parts which are new (to the forum) but have been hanging around for a long time not doing much (definitely not.....).
Our army chucked anything over 18 years old out, a lot of which I seem to have subsequently acquired to make useful work machinery from. A bit of a hoarder I'm afraid.
It always amazes me where this stuff keeps coming from, like crated N.O.S. jimmy cab doors at W&P. Apparently there are still barns and sheds across France full up with the stuff, just forgotten.
A few years back I found a customer at work looking around my trucks, turns out he was just retired from RAF and had been out in the Falklands.
He was given the task of making secure storage for missiles and warheads, they found a remote level plateau and bulldozed the black volcanic sand up into high bund walls to create a screened compound.
He stood in the middle with his mate, admiring their work when suddenly they both disappeared into the ground. They had fallen 10 ft into a 35 ft Romney shed full up with crated WW2 M.V. spares!
It turns out the Americans used the island as a staging post for flying planes around the globe, and at the end of the war had simply bulldozed the site and totally covered the buildings.
The RAF boys found one more shed and had all the stuff 'Hercules'ed back to Lincolnshire. Wonder where it ended up?.........