Originally Posted by Nelphus

with books... make sure you don't look at the amazon price but right underneath the amazon price there is always "used and new starting at ___". You click on that and then find new books from private merchants that have 95%+ ratings with 1000+ reviews over the past 12 months. Most of these will give great descriptions of their books, i.e. "small corner fold on back cover, no highlighting or markings", "new 6th edition" etc. I ordered most of mine new through these merchants but a couple like the histology text had minor shelf wear and were heavily discounted.