I was too brief. It was practice to remove the front covers from the unsold books before discarding them. That practice was to prevent the books being retrieved from the trash to be sold.
” I was too brief. It was practice to remove the front covers from the unsold books before discarding them. That practice was to prevent the books being retrieved from the trash to be sold. “
I may be misinformed, but it was my understanding that publishers would reimburse sellers for certain unsold books; the sellers were to remove the covers and return them to the publisher, and destroy the remainder of the book. It was illegal to then sell the coverless book under that program.
I do have a few of those.
Booksellers remove the front covers and return them to the publisher to get a full refund of the price they paid for them, listing them as unsold and destroyed. It's cheaper than paying the full cost of returning the much heavier whole book. They are supposed to have been destroyed in the agreement the bookseller made with the publisher for disposal of unsold inventory.