I know it wasn't new out of the box because I stopped by there last week on my way home from somewhere else. They had that machine, the Janome 15000 available to test but they said I should also look at the Pfaff Creative Sensation. They didn't have the Pfaff for me to try because someone had bought it (their demo model) so they asked me to come back today to try out both machines. So the Pfaff was new out of the box but the Janome (which is the machine I want) was at their shop for a while- and who knows how long! So this must be their policy.