It's tough to say. If the gasket had no rub marks on it I would say it's new or at least never mounted. AB doesn't have the greatest quality control or coils so it could be new.
But I would see what else Bob has to say. I would hope the owner of AB would know for sure. Tell him you got it from a dealer in FL.
The reason they don't look the same as the recone. The recone can not run thru a QC process. Thats something you have to do once you install the recone. If they did any type of QC to make sure the sub works, its gonna look different than the recone. Because power has been put to the voice coil.
That coil looks pretty shabby, but 一分价钱一分货 I guess. My Precision Econowind coils don't come looking like that.
Did you get a good enough deal that if you have to throw a 90$ recone at it you're not = the price of a new one?
I would run it. I beat the piss out of my XFL. Many competitions where I clipped the hell out of it trying to get that extra .1 on the meter. And it was still banging when I got rid of it.
Send it. Don't be paranoid. If it's that big of a deal ask for your money back and move on.
I didn't want to send it back if nothing was wrong. Post above yours was me moving on.