grading rant

Dedicated to my pal Adrian, who shortly after sending me a signed copy of Chabon's latest was hit by a car, landed on his face and ended up with a titanium plate & a wired jaw. Get well soon!

First, there's no such classification as "Very Fine".
Fine is the top of the range, there is nothing beyond it. Describing a pristine book as Very Fine is like describing a corpse as Very Dead. They are binary states, you either qualify or you do not. The book, or the comic, or the chair or whatever is being described cannot give 110% on the condition front- it is what it is.

Note that this reality does not preclude lily gilding.
You're fully entitled to express enthusiasm for the intrinsic Fine-ness of your item. I'm fond of the descriptors "glossy", "pretty" and "clean" to emphasize condition.

But not 'Very Fine', or the abominable FINE +, the bastard spawn of a thousand lobotomized Ebay merchants.

Unprofessional language implies that you aren't dealing with a professional. And when it comes to grading objects, this is an air raid siren red alert spinning siren warning of inevitable impending disaster. The running joke here is when a customer says they have books that are in "great" shape, you'll be lucky if they're suitable for lining a birdcage.

Consider this cautionary tale from earlier today:

A lady brings in a large old book which she'd assured me was in "nice" shape on the phone. When she arrives and removes it from a protective grocery bag, I suppressed a sigh. When she asked why I didn't want it, I noted that the hinges were basically detached from the spine and that it was shedding loose pages- it was more a dilapidated folder of ratty newsprint than a book.
"But can't you just sell the pages?" she whined.

Hope springs eternal!