This is a list of used book conditions.

Booksellers Bookselling is the commercial trading of books which is the retail and distribution end of the publishing process. People who engage in bookselling are called booksellers, bookdealers, bookpeople, bookmen, or bookwomen. The founding of librari ...

use standard terms to describe the condition of the

used book A used book or secondhand book is a book which has been owned before by an owner other than the publisher or retailer, usually by an individual or library. Used books typically become available on the market when they are sold or given to a sec ...

s that they sell.

List of used book conditions

The set of terms below were proposed in 1949 by ''

AB Bookman's Weekly ''AB Bookman's Weekly'' was a weekly trade publication begun in 1948 by Sol. M. Malkin as a publication of the R. R. Bowker Company, publisher of ''Books in Print'' and other book trade and library periodicals. In its glory days between the early ...

''. They were adopted by the bookselling community and are still in use today. *As new means that the book is in the state that it should have been in when it left the publisher. This is the equivalent of

mint condition Mint condition is an expression used to denote the quality of a pre-owned good as displaying virtually no imperfections and being in pristine condition relative to its original production state. Originally, the phrase related to the way collect ...

numismatics Numismatics is the study or collection of currency, including coins, tokens, paper money, medals and related objects. Specialists, known as numismatists, are often characterized as students or collectors of coins, but the discipline also includ ...

. *Fine (F or FN) is "as new" but allowing for the normal effects of time on an unused book that has been protected. A fine book shows no damage. *Very good (VG) describes a book that is worn but untorn. For many collectors this is the minimum acceptable condition for all but the rarest items. Any defects must be noted. *Good (G) describes the condition of an average used worn book that is complete. Any defects must be noted. *Fair shows wear and tear but all the text pages and illustrations or maps are present. It may lack endpapers, half-title, and even the title page. All defects must be noted. *Poor describes a book that has the complete text but is so damaged that it is only of interest to a buyer who seeks a reading copy. If the damage renders the text illegible then the book is not even ''poor''. *Ex-library copies must always be designated as such ''no matter what the condition of the book''. *Book club copies must always be designated as such ''no matter what the condition of the book''. *Binding copy describes a book in which the pages or leaves are perfect, but the binding is very bad, loose, off, or non-existent.

Dust Jackets

*Partially chipped (PC) describes small scuffs that remove the original colour of the dust jacket in discrete small flecks. In all cases, the lack of a

dust jacket The dust jacket (sometimes book jacket, dust wrapper or dust cover) of a book is the detachable outer cover, usually made of paper and printed with text and illustrations. This outer cover has folded flaps that hold it to the front and back book ...

is noted if the book was issued with one. The same applies to other possible accessories, such as inlays (like

errata An erratum or corrigendum (plurals: errata, corrigenda) (comes from la, errata corrige) is a correction of a published text. As a general rule, publishers issue an erratum for a production error (i.e., an error introduced during the publishing pro ...

lists, cards, photo prints,

PCB PCB may refer to: Science and technology * Polychlorinated biphenyl, an organic chlorine compound, now recognized as an environmental toxin and classified as a persistent organic pollutant * Printed circuit board, a board used in electronics * ...

s), foldouts (like maps), media (like

diskette A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, or a diskette) is an obsolescent type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined w ...

s, CDs,

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kind ...

s) etc. There is no standard term for books in a condition below poor. Their normal fate is to be discarded or to be broken into individual pages if these have any value.

After the Internet

With the advent of the Internet, ''AB Bookman's Weekly'' magazine declined and its place was taken by Internet listing services starting with Interloc in 1994. These services, for their own purposes, have made modifications to this list.

Amazon Amazon most often refers to: * Amazons, a tribe of female warriors in Greek mythology * Amazon rainforest, a rainforest covering most of the Amazon basin * Amazon River, in South America * Amazon (company), an American multinational technology c ...

adds the terms "acceptable", for example.

References

Bibliography

* Chernofsky, Jacob L., editor. ''Bookman's Yearbook 1990–1991''. Clifton, NJ: Bookman's Weekly, 1991. *

External links