Corner dings, right-edge wear, chips vs tears

Corners

Shoot each of the four cover corners as its own close-up, tight enough to see blunt, crease, and color break. A softly rounded corner without a break is handling wear. A corner with a white pinch or a triangular loss is more serious. Bottom corners take box-bottom damage; top corners take shelf and stack hits. Do not send one “nice” corner and imply the others match.

A ding that only rounds the board, with ink intact, is not a chip. A chip is missing paper. A tear is a split that still has both sides of the paper present. Those three words get used interchangeably in ads. They should not be interchangeable in a grade.

Right-edge wear, chips vs tears

Right-edge wear from riffling or box storage shows as a line of small chips or a softened edge. Accumulation of those small hits can outweigh a single larger defect elsewhere. The right edge has to be in the full-cover shot; a cropped cover that hides it will not get the benefit of the doubt.

A tear that stays attached is not a missing piece, but a tear that lets a flap lift is on the way to detachment. Missing-piece size and location both matter. A tiny corner loss is not the same as a chunk out of a character or the title. As grades fall, larger triangular or square losses are tolerated: very small at very good, larger into good and fair, and extensive loss belongs with poor. Tape over a missing piece does not restore the paper.

Manufacturing vs handling

Bindery chips, tiny bindery tears, a printer crease that matches the print run, or a minor miswrap are manufacturing. Conservative grading treats those more leniently than a handling tear or chip of similar size — except at 9.8 and above, where almost no defect is shrugged off. If you know a mark is a printer defect, say so in the notes. If you are guessing, the estimate will still prefer the more serious plausible reading when the photos are ambiguous.