Can You Sell Damaged Law Books? Water, Mould and Bindings

A leak over the library, a flooded basement or years in a damp garage can leave a set of law books stained, warped or mouldy. Damage lowers what a set is worth, but a damaged set can still be worth a valuation, and mould needs careful handling before anything else happens.

Can you sell damaged law books?

It depends on how much of the set is damaged, and how badly. Law books are mostly bought and sold as sets, so a buyer looks at the set as a whole. A run of law reports with a few water-stained volumes is still a run of law reports. A set where every volume is mouldy is a different matter.

Condition makes a real difference to price. The Antiquarian Booksellers' Association, the world's oldest trade association for rare books and manuscripts, says in its advice for the public that the condition of a book makes a huge difference to its selling price. Law books are no exception, so the more clearly a buyer can see the damage, the more accurate the valuation.

What damage lowers the value of law books?

Water damage. Water stains the pages and cockles them, so they ripple and no longer lie flat. It can warp the boards too. It also brings the risk of mould, which is why wet books need attention quickly (more on that below).

Smoke damage. Smoke stains the bindings and leaves a smell in the paper, and both put off the next owner.

Mould. Mould is the most serious, because it damages the books and can affect people's health. It has a section of its own below.

Loose or broken bindings. A volume with a loose spine or a detached board is harder to use and to shelve, and it needs repairing before it is as useful as the rest of the set.

Red rot. On old leather bindings, the leather can crumble to a reddish dust. The British Library's preservation guide on mould explains that red rot is the common name for this, found on certain nineteenth-century bindings, and that it is not caused by mould. If your older law reports are bound in leather, check them for it.

Foxing. These are brown spots and stains on the paper. The same guide says foxing may be caused by mould, or by chemical impurities in the paper itself.

Library stamps and labels. These are worth mentioning too, because photos of the spines may not show them.

One damaged volume affects the whole set, because sets are mostly bought and sold whole. A volume too damaged to use is like a missing one: the next owner has to find a replacement to make the set complete. So say which volumes are damaged, and show them.

What about mould?

Mould needs care, for your sake as much as the books'. The British Library's Preservation Advisory Centre, in its booklet Mould, says mould causes irreversible damage to collections and presents a significant health hazard. Its spores can cause allergic reactions in some people.

How to tell mould from dust. The guide describes the first signs of mould as small, round, grey, slightly fibrous patches, where dust is a smooth coating. On books, it often appears along the inside of the cover, in the narrow strip between the edge of the board and the pages. A torch held at a low angle makes it easier to see.

If the mould is wet or smears. The guide calls this active mould: it is usually damp, and it smears when touched or wiped. Do not try to wipe it off. Do not wrap or seal the books up either, because the guide says enclosing damp material encourages mould to grow.

If the books are completely dry. Dry, inactive mould can be isolated in sealed bags or boxes, or in a separate area, until it can be cleaned, according to the guide.

Leave the cleaning to someone equipped for it. The guide's advice for removing dry mould is careful brushing in a well-ventilated area, a fume cupboard or with proper extraction, and it notes that an ordinary vacuum cleaner does not hold back the spores. Mould spores travel on air currents, so brushing a mouldy book at a desk spreads them round the room.

If you have to move mouldy books. The guide's advice for anyone handling mouldy material is a mask rated FFP2 or FFP3, close-fitting vinyl or nitrile gloves, and goggles.

Keep any mouldy books apart from the rest of the library, and tell us about them when you send your photos, so we know which books are affected before anything is collected.

What to do if your law books have just got wet

Act quickly. The British Library guide notes that mould can appear on wet or damp material within 48 hours.

Dry the books with fans, dehumidifiers and cool air. The guide warns against warm air, because warmth can encourage rapid mould growth. Mould thrives in damp, still air, so moving air through the room and bringing the humidity down both help.

Freezing wet books stops mould from growing or getting worse, though the guide is clear that it is not a treatment for mould and that not every item is suitable for it. Wrapping is only for preparing books for the freezer, or for moving them somewhere they can be dried at once.

If a whole library has been flooded, a book conservator can advise on what is worth saving.

Should I clean or repair the books first?

No. Leave them as they are and photograph them. A clear photo of the damage tells us more than any attempt to tidy it, and cleaning mouldy books at home risks spreading the spores, as the British Library guide explains. Repairing a binding is skilled work, so leave that to whoever owns the books next.

Do not throw away damaged volumes before we have seen photos, either. A damaged volume is still part of its set, and the set is valued as a whole.

Do you buy damaged law books?

We value a collection as it stands, damage included, so damaged law books are worth sending photos of. We buy law book collections and sets: law reports, Halsbury's Laws and Halsbury's Statutes, encyclopaedias of forms and precedents, practitioner texts, journals and rare law books. The full list of what we buy names the series one by one. We don't buy single textbooks. For the other places law books can be sold, see our guide to where to sell old law books in the UK.

Damage lowers what a set is worth, so tell us which volumes are affected and how. Our guide to whether old law books are worth anything explains how condition sits beside the set, the run and the edition.

If you go ahead with a sale, we pack the books from the shelves and collect them free, wherever in the UK they are. That is how selling your law books to us works. Where the damage leaves part of a collection with little resale value, we can talk about collecting that part free of charge, so the damaged volumes can go with the rest.

Books that really are past use, soaked through or rotten with mould, are for recycling, and our guide to recycling old law books explains how councils handle hardbacks.

Getting a valuation for damaged law books

Start with the shelves: one photo of each bay, taken from the front in good light, so we can read the spines and see which volumes of each set are damaged. Then take close-ups of the worst of the damage: the water stains, the broken spines, any mould. Tell us where the books are kept, by town or postcode, and whether any of them are mouldy. Our checklist for preparing a law library for collection covers the rest.

Send the photos and the close-ups through our valuation form, or WhatsApp them to 07920 748314, and we will tell you what we can do with the collection as it stands.