How To Describe Old Books (Help)

[wolf63]

I volunteer in a Oxfam book and music shop. Part of my job is to list books that we wish to sell online.

I know what Foxing is but can anyone advise me if any other words or phrases that I might want to use?

Newer books are simpler to describe but the donated books can sometimes be a hundred or so years old.

Thanks to anyone who can help.

[1ozzy]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_used_book_conditions

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_booksellers%27_abbreviations

May be of help.

[Buenchico]

Ozzy has largely got it covered. I'll just add the following:

In several decades of reading the 'Book Collector' magazine, I've hardly ever seen 'DJ' ('dust jacket') used by any professional bookseller. It's nearly always 'DW' ('dust wrapper').

'Poor', as indication of condition, is often substituted by 'reading copy only'.

The absence of something like 'second edition' at the front of a book doesn't necessarily mean that it's a first edition. The date of publication (crosss-checked against the British Library catalogue) is a far better indicator:
http://explore.bl.uk/primo_library/libweb/action/search.do?vid=BLVU1

Occasionally a bookseller will choose to indicate the size of a volume, using terms such as 'quarto' or 'octavo'. (That's particularly so where the illustrations in a book are as important as , or even more important than, the text). The meanings of such terms can be found here:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_size#Common_formats_and_sizes

Illustrated pages are commonly referred to as 'plates'. With some books, such as large Victorian volumes on ornithology or botany, the money that can be made by selling the plates individually can greatly exceed the privce that can be obtained by selling a book as a whole (but seek advice before cutting up a possibly valuable book!)

[wolf63]

Thanks guys.

I had wiki on my list of places to go but I hadn't got there yet.

You are right about some of the illustrations, Chris, some of them are set works in their own right.

We sold a book at auction for £1500 recently.

We currently have a 50% off sale online (on our website) if anyone is interested.

G'night from Frankie and me x

[Alonelywriter]

thanks for sharing it

[Alonelywriter]

Thanks for posting

[joko]

there is somewhere that you just enter the ISBN number and it brings all the relevant detail etc
cant remember what now though