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How to Grade Inside of a Rare Book

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Part of the video series: Buying Rare Books: Condition & Value

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Summary: An experienced book dealer and online seller explains how to grade the inside quality of a rare book in this free series of book collecting videos.

Views: 409 | Tags: collecting, book, internet, web, books, collection, e-bay, dealers, abe, book collecting

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About the Expert

Molly Mackey Molly Mackey has been an independent book dealer for more than 10 years. She gained her book knowledge as a used book buyer for Bodhi Tree bookstore on Melros... read more

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Video Transcript

How to Grade Inside of a Rare Book

Hi. I'm Molly Mackey, and I'm with Expert Village. Now, we're going to talk about inside assets to a book, and how you can describe those. Many books will have photographs throughout, many times black and white. No big deal. But, then you'll run across some really appealing type color plates. These shouldn't be described as just color pictures. Color plates would be the correct terminology for these. Sometimes you'll see them tipped in. And, that means that they're loose, but there's just a light strip of glue across the top holding the photograph. This would be a tipped in plate. This is just a normal color plate. Another outstanding asset to mention is if you have extremely bright pages that are almost new like. Because many books of this age tend to brown or age with time. So, this is a very bright and clean. That's the way I like to describe it, a nice bright, clean book inside. Another issue would be the spine. If it's weak or cracked, not good. This one particularly is very strong. So, that's another thing to mention. You definitely want to mention that it has a strong binding. That's a good selling point. And, lastly, we have something that's called a frontis or a frontispiece. That's F-R-O-N-T-I-S. And, that would be at the beginning of many old books will have this, and it's worth mentioning. They'll have a portrait of the author or some significant relevance to the book. And, definitely you want to describe that as well. Sometimes there will be tissue paper covering them. Then, you will call it a tissue covered frontis.

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