The *one* "legit" reason I can imagine for cut cables would be if an old school were remodelled/demolished by workmen who didn't give a fig about equipment left behind in a lab and the systems were subsequently dumpster-dived but, yeah, it certainly wasn't a stamp of quality. I didn't bother with trying to negotiate anything because:

1: I've tried to talk to some of these eBay-pricers before and it's amazing how bullheaded they can be. Pretty much marked it up as a lost cause after a flabbergasting conversation with an idiot that was absolutely positive his pair of DuoDisk units that looked like they'd been chucked down a flight of stairs would *totally* sell for $200 on eBay-and-you-should-be-thrilled-I'm-only-asking-$40... each.

2: The ripped cables weren't the only thing wrong; they were *trashed*. (All but one had missing keys, and the one that didn't had a suspicious "bend" in the keyboard, etc.) Honestly they looked like they weren't so much dumpster-dived as fished out of the rubble of a controlled implosion.

Yay.