I'm not sure what you mean Alan by the two. The one I bought came in a box with a plug on it but was covered in packing and metal preservative that had to be cleaned off.
A lathe of this size really has to be fixed to a bench and is probably too big to be considered as portable so I would not advise mounting it in a box unless the base can be temporarlily secured or clamped when in use. If you had an out of balance item in the chuck this size of machine could start to move around with disastrous consequences so it must be firmly secured when in use.
When I had cleaned the wax off mine, bolted it to my workbench and wired it up it was ready to go. I cut the plug off so that I could run the cable neatly below my work bench but you could just plug it in.
It is about as ready to go as you could expect but you have to do a little bit to it first. You will also of course have to consider setting up a light, which, don't forget, cannot be a single flourescent tube lamp fitting.
Here's a couple of shots of my set up using one of these lathes:
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