I've bought maybe 40 or 50 vintage 'sealed' model kits on eBay over the past 15 years. i've made good money flipping them, usually 2-3 times what i paid, after fees. It got a lot harder to flip for a profit when the eBay and PayPal fees jumped to 13%.
Along the way, i sadly bought at least 4 (that i can remember) that were obviously reshrinked. One had cello that was WAY too krunchy to be factory correct. Two had obvious wear on the box top corners UNDER the shrinkwrap.
Number 4 had a return address label from a guy whose industry initials go by M K, on the box bottom. This return address label was UNDER the shrinkwrap. The eBay Seller that i bought from never pictured the box bottom. After i recd it, i emailed M K using the email address on the recent model box art.
M K told me that at the beginning of his journey into the old model kit business, he regularly reshrinked old model kits and marked them with his return address UNDER the shrink.
As it turned out, ALL FOUR of these reshrinked kits had missing or even glued parts inside!
So, even M K 's kits had issues that were present when the kit was rewrapped!
I have nothing positive to say about the 3 mystery thieves but i give credit to M K for being totally upfront about his history of rewrapping vintage model car kits. And he DID mark them with a label UNDER the new shrinkwrap.
Word to the wise: Look hard for corner wear on 'Factory Sealed' old car kits.