Provincial Booksellers Fairs Association - Book Fair YORK NATIONAL 2011

In catalogues, websites, quotations and offers for sale always describe books accurately and arrange the description in clear blocks e.g. Author, Title, Date, Contents, Binding, Condition - this is a commonly used sequence.

The terms Mint, Fine, VG, Good, Reading Copy, and Poor should be used. The only one of these whose definition is unarguable is Mint - without blemish as published. From there downwards the grades are increasingly subjective but a book which has corners bumped, inner hinge cracked and text annotated can never be, for example, VG. even “for its age”.

The more expensive the book the more important it is to check it with an authoritative bibliography. Such references should be available with the book.