[PaulR]

The NOS stereo Ronette I bought has the identical stylus to the repro one.

I think that Techman makes a good point. These were never high compliance hi-fi cartridges and will have chewed up records when new. The technology is 60 years old or so and we should expect that sort of performance from them. If you want to get an old record player going again and looking original, that is fine but don't expect too much from them and don't play any LP you value on them.

My wife had/has a nice Marconi record player from the early 70s (I say has because it is still in our loft) It has a ceramic cartridge from the era which will have higher compliance than a turnover cartridge like the Ronette but you can still hear the wear when the records are played on proper hi-fi. By contrast my records of the same age which have always been played using a magnetic cartridge have no perceptible wear at all.