On Wed, 10 Jan 2001, Jim Choate wrote:
"If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property."
They've been doing this for at least 20 years.
The reason for this is that if the cover is ripped off the book in that manner, it is usually one that has been "stripped". That is when a paperback is reported as "not sold" and instead of sending the books back, they just send the front covers for a refund. (Books are heavy and they figure it is not worth the shipping.) The books are then supposed to be destroyed. Some dealers will then sell the books after they have been refunded in this manner. (Gotta get that extra profit!) That is why that warning is there. It is because the books have probably already been claimed as destroyed to the publisher and a refund issued. alan@ctrl-alt-del.com | Note to AOL users: for a quick shortcut to reply Alan Olsen | to my mail, just hit the ctrl, alt and del keys. "In the future, everything will have its 15 minutes of blame."