I know that when Canadian Tire and Cabelas were selling Russian SKS, there were no price differences between a rifle with a XXXX out stock and a normal stock. But you also got to check out several before buying. Also another item to consider is what was done at storage facilities and refurb since the USA embargo and now. Things could have changed in the many years that have past.
I guess it could be jstin. The thing I'm having such a hard time wrapping my head around is that I've shown conclusive proof with that '49 example in the other thread that SKS's are being actively humped while
on Canadian soil (they are in the US too by the way). Before chasing down the rabbit hole of the 'Russians changed refurb practices between the US imports and the Canadian ones', isn't it less of a stretch to to note that the majority of Westrifle guns are 'off', the humped guns we've seen are all tied to WR in some way, and a good majority of the other Canadian SKSs sold at retail in the past 5 years really don't have these 'off' traits (ie. they have std. refurbishment characteristics)? Perhaps WR's exporter modified these, perhaps WR did it themselves, perhaps it's a third party that's doing it after they sell at wholesale. The fact is, someone is doing it and the Canadian connection is ridiculously strong.
As justin hell points out, it is well worth it to do this type of 'freshening' in quantity just to make an additional $50 per rifle as long as the labor effort isn't too intensive. I don't know that they were trying to deceive people that these guns are "unissued/non-nrefurbished/unfired" (which of course, now that they are out in the wild a good majority now assume), but they were certainly trying to make these guns appear to be in better condition than when they were pulled out of storage in. The only reason they would do this is to make them easier to sell and/or to be able to sell them at a premium price to an unsuspecting milsurp market.