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Old February 20th 07, 10:11 AM posted to rec.collecting.books
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Default Unscrupulous Dealers and Price Gouging in Seattle?

On Feb 18, 1:54 pm, "RWF" wrote:
On Feb 16, 1:07 pm, wrote:

There is dealer in my area who got exercised
because I simply ask him if a paperback
was new or used.


Geez palmjob, after going on at length in about a million posts about
how smart and knowledgable you are, one would think you'd be able to
tell the difference between a new and a used paperback!
I guess it's true that self-abuse does diminish one's eyesight!


You are full of beans, as always. It is often absolutely
impossible to tell whether a book is new or "used, like
new." Yes, sometimes books do have that "never been
opened" look and feel. On the other hand, a great many
books have been opened, browsed, thumbed-through,
etc., right in new bookstores. Or, are you going to
invent a rule that states that a book which has sat
on a bookstore's shelves for a while cannot be called
new? Of course, the custom of trade in the book
business does not adhere to any such ridiculous rule,
as you well know. When a book has been owned by
a careful reader, it is often impossible to say from
looking at it whether it is new or "used, like-new."
Yes, you can often tell if a book has been opened, but
you have no way of determining whether it has been
opened by someone glancing through it in a bookstore
or has been opened by a careful reader. So, in your
pathetic attempte at humor, your are blaming me
for not knowing things that no one else could
possibly know either. You're really sort of dumb,
aren't you? A veritable dim bulb! 'Fess up, now...

[Memo from the upstairs office.]


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