Excellent, Good, or Fair: What My Condition Grades Actually Mean
I use condition grades on every single listing, and I think a lot of buyers gloss over them without knowing exactly what they're actually promising. Let me walk through what each grade genuinely means when I'm the one assigning it, because it's more specific than it might sound.
Excellent means as close to new as a preowned piece genuinely gets. No noticeable exterior wear, corners intact, hardware bright with no tarnish, interior clean. This grade means you'd have to look extremely closely, and often still wouldn't find meaningful signs of prior use.
Good is the grade most preowned pieces genuinely fall into, and it's not a compromise, it's an honest description of a piece that's been used and loved. Light corner wear, maybe some gentle handle darkening, minor hardware wear consistent with normal use, nothing structural, nothing that affects how the piece functions or looks from a normal distance.
Fair is where I'm being upfront that a piece shows its history more visibly, noticeable wear, maybe some hardware tarnish, corners that have softened, but still structurally sound and genuinely usable. I only use this grade when the piece is still worth owning and using, just honestly at a different stage of its life.
What I won't do is round a piece up to make it sound better than it is. If something has real wear, I say so, specifically, not just with a grade but with the actual details in the listing description, because the whole trust relationship between us depends on that grade meaning something consistent every single time.
I'd encourage you to hold every seller you buy from to that same standard, ask what specifically earns a piece its grade, not just the label itself. A seller who can answer that clearly, and who's willing to grade honestly even when it means a lower number, is exactly the kind of seller worth trusting with a real purchase.
Follow LeveLux, and catch our live shows on TikTok and Whatnot: Instagram · TikTok · Whatnot · eBay
