There were only 2 roadside finds out last week. The first was an Emerson 40 LCD with a cracked screen. The second was a Hisense 40 CCFL from about 2012. It was filthy but I decided to pick it up as I have recently come to appreciate CCFL.
The screen looked like the kids were learning hieroglyphics on it, but there were no scratches. I pulled the bezel and it looked like no liquids had been ingested.
Opening it up it was fairly clean. Upon powering it up it had a blown fuse. Easy fix. The rest cleaned up fairly nicely. So, you can never tell by looks alone.