The spacecraft was flight-rated but never flown. The vehicle didn't have the plexiglass covering like the photos of it in the Quest Magazine article (only the hatch had a plexiglass cover). You could go right up to it and caress it if you wanted to. From an artifact point of view, it looked like all of the major and most of the minor parts were still attached. It had a real heatshield and everything! Since most Mercury flight articles one sees in museums have been flown, it is unusual to see unflown real hardware.
--David Weeks
