The grading words
There is no enforced standard. What follows is how the words are used by careful sellers; anyone can use them differently, and the photograph outranks the adjective every time.
| Grade | Usually means | Watch for |
|---|---|---|
| Fine | As issued, no defects worth naming | Applied to books with faded spines by sellers who have not compared |
| Near fine | One small, named defect | The defect should be named. If it is not, ask |
| Very good | Sound, honest wear, complete | The workhorse grade; covers a wide range |
| Good | Worn but complete and holding | Often means hinges are starting to go |
| Reading copy | Complete text, everything else compromised | Fine for reading, not for a collection |
| Ex-library | Stamps, pockets, often rebound | Disqualifying in some fields, irrelevant in others |
Two questions get you further than any grade: is it complete, including plates and maps, and are the hinges sound. A missing plate is invisible in a photograph of the spine.
Foxing, damp and mould
Foxing is brown spotting, usually associated with iron impurities and humidity in the paper’s history. It is stable, ugly to some collectors and invisible to others, and it does not spread to neighbouring books.
Mould does spread, is often grey-green or fuzzy rather than brown and spotted, and smells. A book with active mould comes off the shelf, into a dry place with air moving, and away from everything else. The distinction matters at the point of purchase: foxing is a price negotiation, mould is a quarantine.
What damp does over five years
- Tide lines in the gutter, darkest at the edge the water reached.
- Cockling of the text block, which never fully flattens.
- Adhesive failure at the spine, so the book opens as sections rather than as a whole.
- In leather, a bloom of salts and, eventually, red rot.
None of it is reversible at home, and most of it is preventable with a shelf that is not against an external wall.
Care, and the oiling myth
Leather dressings were standard advice for most of the twentieth century and are now avoided by conservators. They darken the leather, migrate into the paper at the joints, attract dust, and do not restore flexibility to leather that has already degraded. If a binding is powdering, dressing it makes a handsome mess of a decaying one.
What does help, in order of effect: stable humidity, no direct sun, upright shelving with books supported but not crushed, large folios flat, and clean dry hands rather than gloves for most material. Cotton gloves reduce grip and increase the chance of dropping a heavy volume, which is a far commoner cause of damage than skin oils.
