Nigger: An Autobiography by Dick Gregory

Books made by hand are generally going to be more resilient than books made by machine, but in either case: the nicer you are to them, the longer they'll last in the condition you bought them in.

Depending on your location, the moisture of that environment may cause slight curling in the board and papers. If so, the materials are adjusting to your environment, and if you left the journal under weight in that environment for 24-48 hours, that issue should resolve itself. This acclimation process is something many libraries conduct when getting new books for their shelves.

Did you scuff or mark your book cover? Don't put soap or water on it! Get a rubber cement pick up and gently rub the mark off of the area. You may not be able to get all of it, but, most of the time, it gets the job done!

SHIPPING

We take great care in the packing of our orders and offer UPS and USPS shipping options. UPS will usually go out in 1-2 days. USPS orders will go out the next Friday.

HANDMADE ITEMS

If extreme circumstances cause the order to be damaged along its way to you, we can offer a discount for the inconvenience, but we are often unable to offer total refunds or replacements due to the handmade nature of our products.

Full refunds will be exclusively given to customers who can provide photographs that show that the product received does not correspond to the order made, and they can keep the original product sent to them.

FINAL SALE FOR ALL ITEMS

All purchases of used, handmade, rare, vintage, obscure and out of print books are FINAL SALE items. 

There are no refunds or exchanges for final sale items.

Keep in mind when you purchase books that are considered rare, used, vintage, obscure, and out of print, these books have been loved by other readers before you. You may find signs of wear like tears, scratches, and/or tape inside the book or on the dust jacket (if applicable). 

You may find personal dedications, names and dates of previous owners, library stamps (for books that circulated in libraries and were later acquired via library booksales), barcodes, original price stickers or erased pricing from prior resale. You will also often find annotations in these books, a sign that previous owner(s) were engaged in deep reading and/or research where notes and observations are left in the margins, underlined or circled with pen or pencil. 

We leave this evidence of previous owners in our books to encourage new owners to engage deeply with the book content as well as the previous owners through their thoughts and observations of the books you now own.

If you are new to book collecting, you might notice phrases like ‘first edition’, ‘near new’ or ‘library copy’ in the descriptions for the books. Below is a short but sweet glossary of what these phrases mean to help you better understand what to look for when collecting previously owned, rare, vintage, obscure and out of print books:

Like New/Mint: A perfect copy, as if it just came up out the shrinkwrap.

Near fine: Not as pristine as a perfect copy, but very close. Usually no/or few markings, tears, or other signs of wear.

Signed: A manuscript signed by the author, usually found on the first two pages of a book and often addressed to the previous book owner

Dust Jacket: The decorative paper placed around hardcover books to protect the binding

Library copy/ex-library: A book that was previously owned and circulated by a library. Usually have card pockets, catalog numbers and barcodes.

First edition/first ed: The first appearance of a work in book form in its first printing and often highly coveted by collectors.

First trade edition: The first appearance of a work in book form for general commercial sale

Mass market paperback: Think your mom’s romance novels or your favorite sci fi novels, the most common of books found in homes. Mass market paperbacks are usuall about 4x7 inches

Out of print: The work is no longer being printed and as such there are only so many copies of the book available.

Paperback: A book with paper covers

Rare: Hard-to-impossible to find with limited copies available of the work.

Obscure: Works that are not well known and/or under-read. Sometimes these books are self published or overlooked in an author’s larger body of work. Very often treasure troves of information!

ATTN RARE BOOK DEALERS!

Please keep in mind that Speculation Bookshop does not function like a standard antiquarian or rare book dealer, which is to say, these books are priced affordably for beginning book collectors of color. If you are a book dealer interested in one of these books, please contact Oriana directly at oriana@forthebirdstrappedinairports.com as the prices marked on the shop are not available to professional dealers. Yes, I can check your information via Shopify and will send your money back if you try to purchase our inventory as a book dealer without first contacting me.