A guy locally is selling a TE-S for fairly cheap that he has swapped out enough that the stick could be a bunch of garbage inside. I am a complete noob to sticks and my vague familiarity with brand names does not give me enough confidence to say whether the parts are still Sanwa or still reactive.
What can I look for? Should I just require that we play a few rounds to see if it feels right? Is the basic PCB and case worth ~100 if 6 buttons and the stick need to be replaced?
lol. it’s a small world.
anyway, I’m " that guy " 
And it wasn’t $100, it was $95, but I can see everyone elses point. The post ( this was all via craigslist mind you, I’m aware that I’m not yet allowed to sell here due to the join-date rule ) is almost two months old. With all the stick sales going on, it does seem that $95 is a bit over the top, so I’d be willing to go down to $85.
Depending on whether you’re a crazy phsyco-bat-shit guy or not, I’d be willing to let you into my apartment to test it out if you’d like. If you think the whole thing seems " fishy " and you come out with a loss, you can report me here to the trading outlet " wall of shame " : http://shoryuken.com/f226/wall-shame-post-info-scammers-thieves-unsettled-transactions-180769/
I’ve been a member of this community for a while, and at this point I would have no reason to step up and reveal my identity if I was going to just rip you off. 
Open the top of the stick’s panel look and see if the button’s say Sanwa, The stick should be pretty obvious, If you see the glue mold removed the stick has been taken out or replaced, Best way to tell it’s Sanwa for me normally is the feel and response, but you can remove the square-gate, and look to see if the microswitches say Sanwa, Normally you can tell Sanwa by the feel.
i bought a TE stick at frys once and the button and stick had been swapped out for their SE counterparts. I could tell immediately as I’ve played on both. Easiest way to distinguish them is to open up the stick and look for the sanwa imprint on the bottom of the buttons.
Fry’s home of the “refurbished”…
TE-S is still retailing for around $150 in most stores… $95 aint bad… if it doesnt looked like it was used as a door stop…
But there is no reason to buy the TE S over the others. I don’t think the price fits the demand.
i live in ontario and bought a TE round 2 for $140 off kijiji. it even came with the game SSF4