Hey there everyone-  I am working on learning to fairly and honestly grade the condition of collectibles.  In that regard, I will likely have several questions as I progress.  I am currently working on grading a huge lot of Dragon and Dungeon magazines.  My first two question follow:



1)  If a magazine is unread with all attachements/enclosures including subscription soliciations, etc., attached, but has a very tiny tear at the bottom or top of the spine,how would you grade it?  This seems to be the case occasionally, even with some of them mags I took straight from sealed TSR shipping boxes myself.  



2)  Same question for a mag that has been lightly read, but has a larger spine split from the bottom of the mag to about a 1/2 inch below the first staple.  I got it on ebay.  It is a very nice copy, but not as pristine as the stuff I got from the distributor boxes.  



I have read the grading conventions on this site and have found them very helpful.  That said, any advice you have would be greatly appreciated.  I want to learn to grade items in a very fair manner.  Respectfully submitted.  DD.Collector.

A couple of ways to do this:
a) describe the overall condition, plus individual flaws.
b) allow the flaws to be the overriding measure, so that a magazine with a tear in the cover is good/fair/poor, even if it's otherwise NM.

There is constant back-&-forth bickering over relative merits of a) & b).

I'm with Frank on this. I just use pics and as accurate a description as I can manage, which is my preferred method for EBay. Where it's not practical for me to do this, like post sites (it's a royal PIA for me to upload to my ISP), I'll get as close to the Acaeum's as I can.

I had an argument once with a booksller who took offense to the grading conventions I used for rpg books... apparently in the used book world 'fine' means super nice where I would mostly consider 'fine' to be just pretty nice... I have since taken to avoiding words like fine/mint/good, and instead will use a description and non-formal adjectives... anything more than a five-dollar item or a clearly marked 'play' copy deserves a couple sentences to describe it.  I do use the Acaeum codes on my spreadsheets to track things, but do not presume a buyer would necesssarily agree.

Thanks to everyone for the advice.  I will put Acaeum grades on my tracking spreadsheet but stick to pics and a good description of flaws for postings.  Respectfully, DD.Collector

davidc wrote:I had an argument once with a booksller who took offense to the grading conventions I used for rpg books... apparently in the used book world 'fine' means super nice where I would mostly consider 'fine' to be just pretty nice... I have since taken to avoiding words like fine/mint/good, and instead will use a description and non-formal adjectives... anything more than a five-dollar item or a clearly marked 'play' copy deserves a couple sentences to describe it.  I do use the Acaeum codes on my spreadsheets to track things, but do not presume a buyer would necesssarily agree.

Geez, if he thought your system or the Acaeum system of grading was harsh, try grading comic books.  The comic book system is more involved and stricter still.  Their very fine would be near mint for many of us and a very good comic would be a fine module.   

Of course, that's my opinion, and grading among comic book sellers on eBay is extremely varied.  I used to sell comic books, and I am pleased to say I never had a buyer who was dis-satisfied with my grading.