We offer the following guidance to give you an indication of how we do business. Our aim in all this is to ensure that we give you the best service we possibly can and that you are satisfied with that service. Our Satisfaction Guarantee is spelt out in this section. Please read these notes in conjunction with our Conditions of Business.
How the bidding works. All bids must be made on the bid form in the sale catalogue - you can download the necessary form. from this web site in various formats if you do not have a catalogue.
If you are not a JAC subscriber, please note that the entry of a bid will automatically generate a subscription to JAC for you.
Forms may be despatched by mail, e-mail or fax.
We emphasise that this is not an online auction. This website is merely a different method of delivering the catalogue. Consequently, real-time electronic bidding is not possible.
We regret that we are not able to accept telephone bids. No bids will be accepted after noon UK (local) time on the closure day printed on the front cover of the sale catalogue. Each lot is sold one hammer price step above the second highest bid. If there is only one bid above the reserve price, the lot will sell at that bid.
Hammer price steps. The hammer price steps are as follows: the hammer price on bids up to £25 moves by £2 steps. £26-£50 by £3 steps. £51-75 by £5 steps. £76-100 by £7 steps. Over £100 by 10% steps. No bidder will pay more than the minimum necessary to secure the lot.
Examples of the hammer price steps in action. Example 1. Lot X is estimated at £50-60 and reserved at £40. Mr Brown bids £40. Mr Green bids £55 and Mr Black bids £70. Mr Black therefore secures the lot at a hammer price of £60, ie one £5 step above Mr Green's bid. Example 2. Lot Y is estimated at £20-25 and reserved at £15. Mrs White, the only bidder, bids £20. She will therefore secure the lot at a hammer price of £17 - i.e. one £2 step above the reserve.
Upset price, reserves and estimates. The upset price for JACPA is £2; ie no bid below £2 will be accepted. Reserves will be as agreed between the vendor and JACPA. Not all lots will carry a reserve. Estimates are our opinion of the price range within which the lot will sell. Estimates are not predictions of selling prices. There is no fixed linkage between reserves and estimates.
Bids below estimate. We welcome such bids. We only ask that you signify a below-estimate bid by placing brackets around your bid.
Commission and Premium. Vendors' commission is 15% plus VAT on the premium at the prevailing UK rate. Buyers' premium is 15% of the hammer price plus VAT on the premium at the prevailing UK rate.
Payment. We accept payment by sterling cheque drawn on a UK branch of a UK bank; by bankers' draft; by international money order and by Mastercard, Access and Visa credit cards. Payment must be made in full within 14 days of receiving the invoice.
Prices realised will be listed in the next catalogue.
Photographs of lots can be most effective in encouraging a sale. We charge a flat fee of £20 for each photograph printed in the catalogue. We can accept vendors' photographs, subject to the usual editorial constraints. We can also arrange for items to be photographed at no extra cost. Where size, etc, permits, more than one lot from the same vendor can be included in a single photograph.
Insurance of purchases in transit is at the discretion of the purchaser. If the purchaser instructs that the property should not be insured, JACPA shall not be in any way liable for any damage to or loss or destruction of the items however caused. Vendor's items will be insured at the vendor's expense whilst on JACPA premises. The rate for both forms of insurance cover will be £1 per £100, subject to a minimum charge of £1.
Post and packing charges. Post, courier, packing and other delivery charges will be billed at cost. Overseas buyers have the option of despatch by air mail or surface mail.
Confidentiality. Reserves are a private matter between the sellers and ourselves. Bids are a private matter between the bidders and ourselves. Please do not ask us to breach this trust.
Satisfaction Guarantee. We shall treat all reasonable complaints with care, speed and consideration. The buyer may return any lot which significantly fails to conform to our catalogue description. The buyer will bear the return postage costs in the first instance. If the complaint is upheld, the sale will be set aside and the hammer price, plus return postage costs, will be refunded in full.
DESCRIPTIONS AND CONDITION OF LOTS.
In addition to the written description given in the catalogue, we use the following standard descriptions for the condition of books and other literature items. Equivalent descriptions will apply to non-literature items (see also
Abbreviations
Mint. - As it left the bookseller. Complete with dust jacket, if originally supplied, and impossible to distinguish from a new copy. A mint dust jacket will be as new.
Fine. - In excellent condition. Some evidence of ownership or storage. May bear small inscription from a former owner. A fine dust jacket will be as new apart from some slight rubbing.
Very Good. - Less than fine condition. Apart from slight foxing or fading, no significant faults. A very good dust jacket will have excellent colour but with rubbing evident on back, edges and corners and possibly some very slight creasing and fading.
Good. - Obviously a second-hand book. Some faults but complete in all respects unless described otherwise. A good dust jacket is complete and fairly clean but with noticeable rubbing, fading, slight creasing, marks, small tears, and other signs of wear.
Poor. - A book in bad condition. It may be warped and stained, with preliminary pages missing and spine damage. The text will be complete. A poor dust jacket will be tatty, grubby and may also be noticeably marked, creased or torn.
A Working Copy. - a book in a condition unacceptable for the library, but complete and still of value, e.g. a garage copy of a workshop manual.
The above terms may be qualified by such words as: very, almost, approaching, less than, plus, minus, etc.
The paper used for certain letters, newspapers and magazines - even today - is of poor quality. Inevitably, such paper will brown in time, sometimes quite quickly. This is not necessarily evidence of neglect, merely chemistry in action. Common-sense dictates that there are very few 50-year old magazines, etc, left in mint condition.
Condition is also relative. A fine sales brochure two years old will be in better condition than a fine sales brochure forty years old. The fineness of the former is as compared with other two-year old brochures and the fineness of the latter is as compared with other forty-year old brochures.
Unless otherwise stated, all books are hard-backed and in English.
All measurements are in inches and taken from left to right then bottom to top. Thus, a book or brochure 12 x 8.5 is in landscape format whereas a book or brochure 8.5 x 12 is in portrait format. Measurements are accurate to half an inch.
The following are the meanings I give to certain words in my descriptions:
Edgy. - Thin, rubbed, slightly worn and perhaps with a few minor tears at the edges. Most often used to describe dust jackets, road test reprints, sales folders and the like. Oversized items are often edgy.
Bumped. - bruising to the corners and top/bottom of the spines of hard-backed books, thick sales brochures, corners of card photo mountings, etc.
Rubbed. - typical of the back cover of a book which has been slid across a desk, or a press pack cover which has been sliding around in an over-size box with a number of others.
Scratched. - a deeper form of rubbing where the surface of the paper has been cut to some depth, but not completely through.
Foxed. - the brown spotty discolouration occasionally found on inside pages and edges of older books.
Warped. - a bending of covers and/or pages, usually caused by damp, or by stacking in uneven heaps.
Chipped. - loss of small portions of paper, usually from dust jackets.
