Article Link: Removed
Skill
Moderate
Things You’ll Need
Glossary of used book terms (See link in Resources.)
Paper and pencil
Introduction
Accurately grading the condition of used books is an important step prior to selling the volumes or even assessing their value for insurance purposes. Antiquarian and rare-book dealers have a specialized glossary with which they use to describe a book’s condition and, if applicable, the dust jacket. These specialized terms are important to understand and use correctly, as a book condition correlates strongly with price. For instance,the better the condition of the book, the more valuable it is to a collector, and the higher the price you can expect as the seller.
Assessing Overall Condition and Structural Integrity
Step 1
Examine the book edges for any nicks, bumps, divots, bent corners, or fading of page edging, book spine or covers. If necessary, remove the dust jacket to evaluate both the book and the dust jacket separately. Examine the dust jacket for any tears, missing pieces, fuzz along the edges or fading. List any defects you discover.
Step 2
Open the front cover and ensure that its connection to the rest of the book is secure and solid and not loose. Turn to the end of the book and repeat this evaluation with the back cover. List any defects you discover.
Step 3
Flip gently through the pages to ensure that they all remain bound within the book. List any loose or missing pages, folded page corners for bookmarks or creased pages you discover. In older books, look for a brownish discoloration known as “foxing.” For more contemporary books and textbooks, note if highlighting is present and to what approximate degree.
Step 4
Return to the inside front cover and first blank pages of the book and look for bookplates, names, gift inscriptions or ex-library stamps and markings. Describe any markings found.
Grading the Book Condition
Step 1
Grade the book “As New” or “Mint” if the book is indistinguishable from a brand-new copy. As stressed by the Advanced Book Exchange (ABE) guidelines, this designation is used only when the volume is in an “immaculate condition to which it was published.” If you have notes you have taken on any defects, do not grade your used book at this level and continue to Step 2.
Grade the book “As New” or “Mint” if the book is indistinguishable from a brand-new copy. As stressed by the Advanced Book Exchange (ABE) guidelines, this designation is used only when the volume is in an “immaculate condition to which it was published.” If you have notes you have taken on any defects, do not grade your used book at this level and continue to Step 2.
Grade the book as “Fine” (abbreviated as “F” or “FN”) if the book seems new, is without defect, but is not as “crisp” as you would expect a new copy to be. For some booksellers, a book may be described as “Fine” even if the dust jacket is slightly damaged with wear or a small tear. Other opinions require that both the volume and the dust jacket be without defect. If you chose to use the former opinion, describe all dust jacket defects completely.
Grade the book as “Good,” “G,” for what the Advanced Book Exchange describes as “the average used worn book” that is not missing any pages, leaves or maps. As with all book designations, all defects that led you to describe it in the condition must be noted.
Grade the book as “Fair,” “F,” for a volume with clear wear and tear from use that may include fading to cover, loose bindings, loose pages, worn bindings, missing or torn dust jacket or missing endpages. Again, all defects must be noted.
Describe honestly the book as “Poor” or as a “Reading Copy” when “its only merit is as a Reading Copy because it does have the complete text,” according to the ABE Glossary. These books are often dog-eared, scuffed, stained, water damaged, and with loose binding or pages. Their print must be legible only and, if for sale despite its condition, clearly described in poor shape.
Tips
Used book conditions are usually abbreviated when found in catalogs, such as VG for “Very Good.” If there is a double abbreviation separated by a slash, then the first designation belongs to the book itself and the second to the condition of the dust jacket, such as: “VG/G.” As noted by the ABE Glossary, a double abbreviation that ends with “/—” indicates that the book was originally published with a dust jacket but this particular volume’s dust jacket is now missing.
In addition, some booksellers add the “+” and “-” symbol to the abbreviations noted above. Only careful communication between the buyer and the seller can fully explain these additional degrees of a book’s condition.
Warnings
While not especially difficult, classifying a used book’s condition can be time consuming and detailed, especially when rating books considered collectible, rare or antiquarian. If you are selling used books, it is always helpful to make available to your potential customers the “glossary” you use to classify your books and to minimize any potential misunderstandings before they might occur.
