I've never seen the ores not marked as at least "High Quality." Some people reported no early on (I think), but they could have confused NQ/HQ status with the "High Quality" message's presence or absence. Early on, it wasn't clear, especially since the column was marked "High Quality." Also, early on, I didn't have Several as an option because I missed that it was a separate message from "High Quality."
Platinum Ore is a "common crafting material," as in, an item used in normal crafting that can be obtained elsewise, as opposed to FC crafting materials, schematic items, or the unique materials for specific items only obtainable via airship ventures. The list and pattern of the 6 "common crafting materials" is above in my post two posts back.
I'd rather people just post in the notes section of their entry (or in an inserted comment) if they see something that contradicts what I said above. I have to strip out any extraneous letters found in the item boxes so all the data will collate and not appear as separate items on the sector list and item list tabs. It's also why I need to make everything singular and have the same capitalization.
We (Bonzai, Arctic, and I) made the decision not to track HQ items and to strip that info from entries coming in because we hadn't been tracking that data. Starting midway through would have confused the data, we didn't want to add a new field if we could help it or make it take longer to enter log entries, and we couldn't leave it logged in the item box when people put it there because it wouldn't collate with the other reports of those items. Also, there really isn't anything airships bring back that most people care about being HQ or not, so it's not useful data. But, I was curious what the high quality/several message really meant and if we could stop tracking it, so I did that analysis yesterday out of curiosity.
I'll keep an eye out for anomalies, and if you see anything that contradicts my above post, please please point it out (via the notes or a comment)!
(Ha! I quoted you anyway! <_< I'm such a jerk D: )
This is it exactly. Item rolls are independent of each other, and you can get the same item twice.
EDIT: I just looked through every single image posted in this thread of an airship log, and every single one of them followed the rules I listed above for the "High Quality" message.