My Criteria for an Acceptable Book
I'm fussy about my collection. I'm only interested in books with dust jackets, and both book and dj must be in Near Fine or better condition. I used to say Very Good or better, but everybody else's definition for Very Good seemed to be my definition for good so I upped the ante.
If I can't say "Hey - that's a nice-looking piece!", I don't want it no matter how scarce it is. Well, maybe for The Maltese Falcon... (See, that's why they call it a hobby.)
If you've been collecting a while, you've probably also discovered that "Very Good" means one thing if you're buying and another thing if you're selling. So I'm going to skip all labels and just describe what's acceptable. I'm being very detailed here for the sake of newbies and for folks who may be more liberal in their definitions of book-describing terminology.
Faults that are pretty much OK
small tear major fold rubbing, slight chipping bumped (OK) & cocked (not OK)
- bookplate
- owner's imprint, signature, or small stamp on endpaper
- inscription
- very slight cocking
- minor bumps
- couple of small dogears
- dust jacket (dj) pricecut
- slight dj chipping
- very slight dj wrinkling
- very light rubbing on non-text dj surface (such as on the folds)
- very slight rubbing over dj text area if text is not obscured
- a couple of small closed dj tears
- a few small holes
- light foxing (brown dots) and slight browning (pages & page tops)
- slight darkening or fading on the dj spine
- slight fraying of any book edge
- slight staining or soiling to book
- very slight staining or soiling to dj
If the book has more than four of these, or more than one of the last three, I'm probably not going to be happy with it.
Faults that usually are deal-killers
badly rubbed spine extreme fading dreaded cellophane tape stains rubbing over text
- ink anywhere in the text area of the book or dj except scribble over price (inscriptions OK)
- pieces missing from book page or dj except small pieces at dj folds, either torn or cut
- any missing page
- gouges
- crayon marks
- pages starting to separate from book
- boards starting to separate (as in visible webbing)
- book opened so far that the spine is visible
- buckling boards or pages (as in water damage)
- obvious stains (as in "Hey. That's a stain! How'd that happen?")
- major color fading (as in red gone to pink or green instead of lighter red)
- dark spines except on Boni-Liveright editions
- other major faults not mentioned here
Boni-Liveright books in dust jacket are pretty hard to find. I'm more tolerant of faults in them than in the others; but even here two "deal-killer" faults takes it out of my consideration.
Also see:
AB Bookman's Terms for Describing Condition
My Wings Books Illustrated Glossary of Book Collecting Terms (off-site)
E-mail the editor
