We’re pleased to announce our first-ever sale of returned, imperfect, and slightly damaged books in our online store for 50% off the standard prices. We’ve been collecting them for almost a decade and have dozens of boxes stacked to the ceiling that we had no idea what to do with—not good enough to sell as new, and too good to simply discard. We’ve stumbled upon a groundbreaking solution: sell them for half as much!

cdn.crimethinc.com/assets/articles/2010/06/09/substandard1_b.jpg

Since our regular prices are as low as they can be, we’ve never had a way to have a sale on our books before, so we’re excited for this chance to make them available for less money. The wholesale price is also discounted 50%, so this would be a great chance to buy books to give away to friends, relatives and even local infoshops and libraries. The number of available books is limited and are available only on a first-come first-served basis—we don’t know how long they will be available, but we imagine it won’t be too long. Click here for the store sale page.

All books are stamped with a “SUBSTANDARD” notice on an interior page towards the front of the book. This is just to ensure no one buys these books to turn around and sell them at full price to unsuspecting folks. The substandard nature of these books falls into one of three categories:

Imperfections – Occasionally we receive books from the printers that slipped past their quality control inspection and have cosmetic blemishes. These errors are almost always on the covers and do not effect the interior of the books. Examples of this include miss-registered color printing, misaligned spot gloss, lamination imperfections, folding errors, and particularly in the case of Expect Resistance, unevenly-folded cover flaps.

Returns – While we don’t accept returns from our online store, some of our larger distributors do, and when books have too much shelf wear they return them to us. The books usually have scuffing on the covers and/or other evidence of being handled. Also, these distributors put bar code stickers on the back cover, so these books either have stickers or a small amount of residue and scratches where a sticker used to be.

Damaged – Sometimes books arrive to us incorrectly packaged, and from time to time we accidentally drop a box or a book and it gets damaged. It’s very sad. These books usually have dented corners, creases on the cover or interior pages, or gouges in the lamination.

Overall the condition of the books varies wildly, some are pretty fucked up, and some are just 5% away from being mint—as far as which kind you’ll get, it’s pretty much the luck of the draw. However, we can say that there are many more books with minor imperfections than ones with serious damage, so the odds are on your side. We can guarantee though that all the books are completely intact and include 100% of the content in readable condition.