Story when I bought mine NIB from John's Jukes in 2006 was as follows: The original distributor in Canada went into receivership in the early 1980's and had just received a shipment of Dragons' from Interflip. Being the company was in receivership nothing could be done with the inventory. The bankruptcy/receivership was cleared in the early 2000's that allowed the inventory to be available to be sold. I believe John's Jukes bought the inventory and started clearing it out. That's when they were first available for purchase NIB. My machine was originally slated to be shipped to the U.S., but Interflip decided to ship it to Canada. On the outside of the box U.S. was crossed out and Canada was handwritten. My service socket is the proper flat blades for U.S. plugs not the round plug style you would expect in Canada.