How to read a condition grade

Five words carry most of the risk in a pre-owned listing: Pristine, Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair. They look like a standard. Across the market they are not one — every seller sets their own scale, and a bag one shop calls Excellent another calls Very Good at three hundred dollars less.

That is not usually dishonesty. It is drift. A grade gets applied a little generously on a slow week, that becomes the new reference point, and eighteen months later the scale has quietly moved a full step. So the question worth asking is never "what grade is it" but "what does this seller's grade commit them to".

Read the photographs, not the word

A grade is a summary. The photographs are the evidence. If a listing says Very Good and shows four flattering three-quarter shots at a distance, the grade is decorative — there is nothing behind it you could hold anyone to.

What you want to see, at minimum:

• All four corners, close, individually. Corners are where wear shows first and where retouching is easiest.
• The interior, lit. Lining marks and odour are the two things photographs suppress most.
• Hardware at an angle, not straight on. Straight-on light hides scratching almost completely.
• The date code or serial, legible.
• Every flaw the description names, photographed individually.

That last one is the real test. A description that names three flaws and shows three close photographs is a seller who expects you to check. A description that names flaws in text but photographs none of them has told you about the wear in the least verifiable way available.

What each grade should mean

Here is the scale we publish and hold ourselves to. The wording matters less than the fact that it is written down somewhere you can quote back at us.

Pristine. Appears unused. No visible wear. Sometimes with original packaging. Genuinely uncommon — if a shop's inventory is largely Pristine, be curious about why.

Excellent. Light use. Minimal wear, no structural issues, interior clean. A bag carried a handful of times and stored properly.

Very Good. Moderate wear. Light corner rubbing, even patina, minor hardware marks. This is what a well-kept bag looks like after a few years of real use, and it is where most honest inventory sits.

Good. Clear wear consistent with regular use. Fully functional. All wear photographed. Nothing hidden, nothing broken.

Fair. Heavy wear, possible repairs or staining. Priced accordingly and disclosed in full. A legitimate category — some people want a bag to use hard, and pretending this tier doesn't exist just pushes it into a higher grade.

The questions that settle it

Before buying anything above a few hundred dollars, ask the seller three things. The answers matter, but the willingness to answer matters more.

"Can you photograph the corners and the interior base?" A seller with the bag in hand can do this in five minutes. Delay or deflection usually means the bag is not in their possession, which changes what their grade is worth.

"Which flaws did you decide not to list?" Phrased that way it is hard to answer with "none". Every used bag has something. A seller who names one or two small things unprompted is describing rather than selling.

"What would move this from Very Good to Good?" This asks them to show you their scale. If they can answer specifically, the scale exists.

Where grading and authentication get confused

They are separate questions and it is worth keeping them apart. Authentication asks whether the bag is what it claims to be. Grading asks what condition that bag is in. A piece can be authenticated beyond doubt and still be described dishonestly — and a beautifully graded listing tells you nothing about whether the bag is real.

You need both, from a seller who treats them as different obligations. If a listing leans hard on "100% authentic" and says almost nothing specific about condition, that imbalance is itself information.

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Written by the Fowlier team. Questions or corrections — hello@fowlier.com. We update these notes when we learn we were wrong.