Look what I got!
I think I never showed my manga buyings here so why am I doing it now? because these are used books from BetterWorldBooks and I want to tell all the story~
My usual store for buying manga, Bookdepository, became pretty expensive, with prices around $18+ for one single manga volume. I don't have the budget to spend that much per volume and I also don't want to spend that much for english volumes with questionable paper quality (for that price I'd rather locally buy spanish editions with white paper and dustcovers! I buy english editions because I prefer the translation AND because they're way cheaper than spanish editions, but if both are going to cost the same...).
[June manga editions are special case because you're "forced" to preorder and buy as soon as you can or their books disappear from the face of earth (or are auctioned later for 5 times their original price). So I still preordered Takarai Rihito's Only the Flower Knows with Bookdepo because it's only 3-4 volumes long (still not sure if I want to buy the "prequel" one T-T)]
Back to the point... so a lot of time ago I found this store that sells used books, mostly from libraries, with nice prices and free shipping (I bet the prices are even better for people from the U.S.). I always checked it to see what they had, watched some unboxing videos online, etc. until New Year's day when I found they had a great cupon! I thought "weeeell, it's a good time to try them!"
There are some mangas that I'd like to own but are not my "favorite ever" so I wouldn't mind owning them used if it means they're cheaper. That's how I chose Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne! only 5 volumes and they had 4 out of 5 of them in "very good" condition... or that's what I thought. A day after receiving the email saying they shipped my order, they sent another email saying they didn't have volume 4 and were going to refund me that one, bleeeh, the system showed two volumes located in different warehouses, I chose all from the same warehouse to receive only one package but the copy from there wasn't available anymore (I wish they told me before shipping it, I would have canceled the whole order *shrugs*).
Anyway, a couple of weeks later I receive my 3 mangas!!! volume 1 and 3 were in "very good" condition! they looked as if nobody ever read them but had a bit of sun damage (yellowed in the corners and the book spine was a bit decolorated). Now, volume 2, following their "book condition" page, was obviously only in "good" condition (some pages had creases and a "dog ear" as you call it) so I contacted them and very politely explained what happened, they said sorry and refunded me that book! wow! I contacted them because I remember they had 2 copies, a "good" and a "very good", and I specifically chose the "very good" one. Since it was my first time buying from them I wanted to know what happenned in these cases since I didn't want to buy later a "good" one only to receive an almost-destroyed "acceptable" later. Now I feel a lot better and secure about them!
Well, all the books were ex-library ones so I spent 3-4 hours cleaning them with alcohol, carefully taking the stickers out and sanding the sides to clean the yellowing and some library stamps. Books 1 and 3 came with an amazing clear plastic cover I would have loved to keep BUT they put all the library stickers under that cover so I had to peel it in order to get the stickers out T--T (spent most of my time cleaning that glue with alcohol). Now, with book 2 they told me to do whatever I wanted with it so I thought of experimenting to try to "iron" the few creases. And my experiment worked wonders! no, I didn't use an iron. Water really damages books forever so I thought of using a liquid that dries so quickly that it doesn't mess the paper fiber: alcohol! (again). So, I tried in a corner first to see if it affected the ink and, at least in Viz books, it doesn't. It also doesn't leave "water" marks, it completely disappears so I put some drops there, wet my fingers with alcohol and pressed the creases really hard and... MAGIC!!! it really works!
To be honest, I did have fun restaurating the books and seeing how good they looked after all the restauration work, quite satisfying!
All in all I think the book condition is acurate, "very good" does look nice but not as nice as my personal, carefully cared, collection. Anyway, they do have another category to books like mine, they would fit the "excellent" condition category, so the "very good" is well classified. The "good" condition looks exactly as it's described (and that's why I inmediately recognized their mistake). I think I will buy volume 4 in "good" condition but I haven't decided yet, I'd really prefer a "very good" so I'll wait for a while, the books are cheaper *for me* ($9-$11) but they're just the normal price for the U.S. I doubt this used copy is going to disappear any time soon :P
Ahhhhhh, I wish I took pictures of how they looked before but I didn't have the patience to document everything, I wanted to start cleaning right away. Just imagine yellowed paper sides and 3-4 stickers on the covers.
They also sell new books and a bit cheaper than Bookdepo, around $3-4 cheaper, so I think from now on I'll buy new ones there too! (you may think it's a tiny difference but when you add it for each volume of a series, it adds a lot! I happily accept a "free" volume every 3 books! lol
My usual store for buying manga, Bookdepository, became pretty expensive, with prices around $18+ for one single manga volume. I don't have the budget to spend that much per volume and I also don't want to spend that much for english volumes with questionable paper quality (for that price I'd rather locally buy spanish editions with white paper and dustcovers! I buy english editions because I prefer the translation AND because they're way cheaper than spanish editions, but if both are going to cost the same...).
[June manga editions are special case because you're "forced" to preorder and buy as soon as you can or their books disappear from the face of earth (or are auctioned later for 5 times their original price). So I still preordered Takarai Rihito's Only the Flower Knows with Bookdepo because it's only 3-4 volumes long (still not sure if I want to buy the "prequel" one T-T)]
Back to the point... so a lot of time ago I found this store that sells used books, mostly from libraries, with nice prices and free shipping (I bet the prices are even better for people from the U.S.). I always checked it to see what they had, watched some unboxing videos online, etc. until New Year's day when I found they had a great cupon! I thought "weeeell, it's a good time to try them!"
There are some mangas that I'd like to own but are not my "favorite ever" so I wouldn't mind owning them used if it means they're cheaper. That's how I chose Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne! only 5 volumes and they had 4 out of 5 of them in "very good" condition... or that's what I thought. A day after receiving the email saying they shipped my order, they sent another email saying they didn't have volume 4 and were going to refund me that one, bleeeh, the system showed two volumes located in different warehouses, I chose all from the same warehouse to receive only one package but the copy from there wasn't available anymore (I wish they told me before shipping it, I would have canceled the whole order *shrugs*).
Anyway, a couple of weeks later I receive my 3 mangas!!! volume 1 and 3 were in "very good" condition! they looked as if nobody ever read them but had a bit of sun damage (yellowed in the corners and the book spine was a bit decolorated). Now, volume 2, following their "book condition" page, was obviously only in "good" condition (some pages had creases and a "dog ear" as you call it) so I contacted them and very politely explained what happened, they said sorry and refunded me that book! wow! I contacted them because I remember they had 2 copies, a "good" and a "very good", and I specifically chose the "very good" one. Since it was my first time buying from them I wanted to know what happenned in these cases since I didn't want to buy later a "good" one only to receive an almost-destroyed "acceptable" later. Now I feel a lot better and secure about them!
Well, all the books were ex-library ones so I spent 3-4 hours cleaning them with alcohol, carefully taking the stickers out and sanding the sides to clean the yellowing and some library stamps. Books 1 and 3 came with an amazing clear plastic cover I would have loved to keep BUT they put all the library stickers under that cover so I had to peel it in order to get the stickers out T--T (spent most of my time cleaning that glue with alcohol). Now, with book 2 they told me to do whatever I wanted with it so I thought of experimenting to try to "iron" the few creases. And my experiment worked wonders! no, I didn't use an iron. Water really damages books forever so I thought of using a liquid that dries so quickly that it doesn't mess the paper fiber: alcohol! (again). So, I tried in a corner first to see if it affected the ink and, at least in Viz books, it doesn't. It also doesn't leave "water" marks, it completely disappears so I put some drops there, wet my fingers with alcohol and pressed the creases really hard and... MAGIC!!! it really works!
To be honest, I did have fun restaurating the books and seeing how good they looked after all the restauration work, quite satisfying!
All in all I think the book condition is acurate, "very good" does look nice but not as nice as my personal, carefully cared, collection. Anyway, they do have another category to books like mine, they would fit the "excellent" condition category, so the "very good" is well classified. The "good" condition looks exactly as it's described (and that's why I inmediately recognized their mistake). I think I will buy volume 4 in "good" condition but I haven't decided yet, I'd really prefer a "very good" so I'll wait for a while, the books are cheaper *for me* ($9-$11) but they're just the normal price for the U.S. I doubt this used copy is going to disappear any time soon :P
Ahhhhhh, I wish I took pictures of how they looked before but I didn't have the patience to document everything, I wanted to start cleaning right away. Just imagine yellowed paper sides and 3-4 stickers on the covers.
They also sell new books and a bit cheaper than Bookdepo, around $3-4 cheaper, so I think from now on I'll buy new ones there too! (you may think it's a tiny difference but when you add it for each volume of a series, it adds a lot! I happily accept a "free" volume every 3 books! lol