Describe the fault
Every defect goes in the listing and in the photographs. Nobody should open a parcel and find something we knew about.
About us
Woven in tradition, culture and history.
Books made properly outlive the people who made them, and almost nobody is set up to move them from one careful owner to the next.
The name
Quire and Gild.
A quire is a gathering of folded sheets, sewn together. It is the unit a book is actually built from, and nobody sees it once the covers are on.
Gilding is the gold on the page edges and worked into the spine. It is the part everyone sees and the part that does nothing at all for the text.
A good book is both. Sound structure underneath, and something on the outside that says this one was worth the trouble.
How we work
Four things we hold to.
Pay sellers properly
We buy in bulk because that is how stock moves, not as a way of paying less for the good books inside. If a lot holds something scarce, we say so.
Keep books out of skips
What we cannot sell goes to charitable book partners, or to recycling as a last resort.
Give a fixed share
Five per cent of profit, every year, to literacy, libraries, archives and conservation. Fixed, not discretionary.
5%
of annual net profit
Giving
How the figure is worked out.
- Taken from net profit for the financial year, after cost of stock, carriage, platform fees, staff, overheads and tax.
- Calculated once the annual accounts are finalised, on the same basis every year.
- Paid within three months of the accounts being signed off.
- Published here with the profit figure it came from, so the sum can be checked.
- In a loss making year the commitment carries forward rather than disappearing. Confirm this policy
Goes to literacy programmes, public libraries, archives and conservation. Named charity partners to confirm Partners will be registered charities, named here, with the amount given to each. The first figure will be published once the first set of accounts is complete, and not before.
Why literacy
A first book matters more than a fine one.
We deal in books that were made to be kept. That only means anything in a country where everybody learned to read in the first place. The share goes where it does the most work.
Where we are
Two bases, and the road between them.
London SW and Merseyside. Books are catalogued and packed at both. The buying takes us wherever a library happens to be, which is most of the country.
Viewing by appointment. Premises address and viewing policy to confirm
Registered in England and Wales. Company details to confirm