Can magnet placed beside cartridge damage a coil?


I received a 20 year old NOS cart from a dealer which I resold as new but ended up having to refund the payment back to the buyer after he found it to have a channel imbalance issue.

I sent it back to the dealer to check out and he says there is a large difference in coil readings of 1.3 (normal) vs. .8. He says he tested his entire stash of these old carts prior to selling them and says the only explanation is that somehow a magnet was placed close to the cart either during transport or by the person I sold it to and thereby damaging the one coil. He therefore assumes no responsibility to replace it.

Would this be possible?
frankk
What it means is that your original dealer is a cheapskate. Yes, if you placed a really high-powered magnet right adjacent to the cartridge it could damage it, but this would almost have to be intentional. And I seriously doubt that he took the time to test each coil on each NOS cartridge he sold! Caveat Emptor applies here, for certain.
Did you demo cartridge or was it bought online? It is good to stay away from NOS unless a warranty is available. Coming into contact with a magnet seems suspect at best.
I couldn't find anything on internet with anyone having a similar experiences so along with replies here (although Stringeen says it could happen) Im having doubts.
1.3 and .8 what? Was he measuring resistance(Ohms) or output(mV)? If resistance; he's fulla shiite. A strong magnet can have an effect on a another(ie: demagnetize), but will do nothing lasting to a coil.
placed near something while being shipped?

any way to shield a cart during shipping......?
I believe he said output volts.
Would that then make it a possibility then?
Also I should mention he tried to re-energize it by running current through it with a small 9vdc battery but it did not work.
A high energy magnet would ruin the cartridge by demagnetizing the cartridge's magnet which folows as to your description of the problem. Moving magnet cartridges need both sides equal - equally muscular magnet - to get proper balance.
He tried to re-energize it by running current through it with a small 9vdc battery but it did not work.
I sure hope that he had a suitably chosen resistor in series with the battery. Otherwise I would expect doing that to result in the 0.8 mv becoming 0.0, permanently!

Regards,
-- Al
Is the dealers name 'Joe Isuzu'? "Yeah the ol magnet trick thats what it was!"
The more I think about it along with all the responses here leads me to believe the possibility of a misplaced high strength magnet somehow mistakenly de-energizing one of the coils partially vs. the 20 year old cartridge having been faulty in the first place lends me to conclude the latter.
Correction from above where I mentioned the reading was output volts. It was micro-ohms.
Correction from above where I mentioned the reading was output volts. It was micro-ohms.
If that is what the person told you, he absolutely does not know what he is talking about. 0.8 micro-ohms is for all practical purposes an unmeasurably small amount of resistance, and is more than a million times smaller than the resistance of any cartridge coil that I am familiar with. It is also something that would be unaffected by a magnet, as Rodman indicated earlier.

The only sensible interpretation of the 1.3 and 0.8 figures seems to me to be the output of the cartridge as measured in millivolts (mv), for the two channels respectively, when playing a standardized test track.

Regards,
-- Al