There are professional guides to the terminology of the condition of a book. An online example of this is ‘A Guide to Used Book Conditions’ [on the website of Abebooks].
The fact is that second-hand books are often not ‘As New’, ‘Fine’ or ‘Near Fine’. The condition of a hundred-year-old book often does not even meet the criteria 'Very Good', 'Good' or 'Fair'. We descend into the depths and cellars of the book supply, where no treasures can be found and books are described as 'Poor' - meaning: 'A heavily worn book whose primary value is its complete, legible text. May have loose joints, hinges, or pages, and may be soiled, scuffed, stained, or spotted' - or not described at all. Even then, there is a term: in such cases the seller may resort to the phrase 'As Described'. However, usually a bad condition is not mentioned as photographs are said to be part of the description.Books may be bowed, chipped, dampstained, darkened, faded, edgeworn, foxed, loose, re-cased, shaken, sunned, trimmed, or there may be worm holes or worse.
Three recent examples found on e-Bay may illustrate such conditions.
Charles Ricketts's Titian is not a rare book at all, and may be found in good condition. This, however, is a copy that I would not even like to touch.
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| Charles Ricketts, Titian (1910) |
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| G.B. Shaw, Charles Ricketts Saint Joan (1926) |
The condition of the Shaw books are described as:
The book is in a used condition, the pages are clean, some have a stain on the bottom, the sketches are in good condition, two of the corners are slightly folded and one has a piece coming away (please see all photos).
The Paper cover is in a used condition and is fragile (please see all photos).
and:
Spine largely detached and partially lacking, thus a fair only copy (internally fine) lacking the dustwrapper
E-bay prices were c. $160 and $430 respectively. Better copies may be found for less.
