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Comment by xavierstein | Hacker News Reader

The one thing this article doesn't touch on, that I wish it had, is condition. I'm a large buyer of used books from places like AbeBooks and Amazon, and the conditions simply cannot be trusted, especially from the larger sellers like Owl Books, Thriftbooks, and Better World Books.

Almost every time I buy a book listed as "Very Good" which has a clear definition on AbeBooks' website[1], I end up getting something with clear markings, or damage.

[1] https://www.abebooks.com/books/rarebooks/collecting-guide/un...

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Amazon has somewhat recently modified their definition of “very good” to allow actual damage rather than just shelf wear. I returned a book last week that had a big gouge in the spine. I’ve previously had good luck buying VG books, but now I might have to rethink buying used from Amazon at all.

That's good to know. I may also have to stop buying used from Amazon. It seems IOBA also allows for damage[1], but it must be noted, which seems to be the main issue.

[1] http://www.ioba.org/pages/resources/condition-definitions/

Opposite for me. Every time I buy a book listed as "good", I end up getting "Very Good", which influenced me to never buy brand new books again. Thriftbooks is absolutely amazing.

I honestly don't mind the condition so long as it's not missing pages. If I'm buying used, i'm buying it to read, not collect. I'm buying it because new is too expensive or it's an old book so I care about the content more. I don't even mind some markings and usage, I personally like books that look like they have read. I just hate when it's missing pages or it's cheap, but the shipping is ridiculous!

some people mind, some don't, but you should be able to trust the description of the condition.

I've found thriftbooks to generally have usable copies in their good/very good category and they don't use paper bar codes so they are easier to clean up than some other high volume sellers.

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