A project that stopped left cable nobody ever installed.

Packing lists name what was shipped, in what lengths, on which drums. Paired with the purchase order they show what the job bought and, by subtraction, what it never installed. That is the strongest documentation a cancelled project can produce, and it costs nothing to send.

Where the packing list is gone, the purchase order alone still helps. Line items with lengths and reel counts let a buyer match paper against what is standing in the yard, and the differences are usually explained by one reel that came off the truck first or a line that was delivered in two drops.

Banding is a good sign. It means the factory winding has not been disturbed and usually means the cable was never pulled. It does not by itself make a reel new, because a banded reel can still have stood outside through two summers with the jacket facing the sun.

Look at the wrap, the drum and the tag together. Sun fade on the outer layer, rust bleeding from a steel drum, water standing in the coil or a tag faded to nothing all belong in the description. Say where the reel has been stored since the stop, and roughly how long.

Most cancelled projects leave a pile rather than a lot. A banded reel of feeder ends up leaning against a reel that was half pulled, with cut-offs and a coil of building wire on the pallet between them, and nobody has separated either one since the job stopped.

Separating them is worth the hour it takes. Untouched reels, opened reels, cut lengths and removed material are described as separate lines, so each can be reviewed on its own facts rather than at the level of the weakest item in the pile, which is usually the one nobody can identify.

• Banded reels that never left the pallet.
• Opened reels with a measured remainder.
• Cut lengths and offcuts from a partial pull.
• Anything that was installed and later removed.

Time is the quiet factor. A reel stored indoors on a rack since the project stopped is a different proposition from one that has been on a gravel laydown with a tarp half over it. The jacket, the drum and the tag all record that history whether or not anyone wrote it down.

If material has to move before a review, move it whole. Re-reeling a banded factory reel to save space breaks the seal and the record at the same time, and it is the one handling decision that cannot be undone afterwards. Keep the packing list with the reels it describes.