You might laugh, but I buy the cheapest, most battered books from Amazon. I kinda like the patina of a well-used book, and let the people who like pristine ones buy the others! My LotR trilogy is one of my valued possessions: dirty, smudged, creased, battered, yellowed, dogeared, it's awesome. They've clearly been enjoyed by their previous owner(s).
Sadly, the local used bookstore tries hard to stock books only in "like new" condition. This removes the best "tell" for if the book is good or not - if it looks well-used, it's probably a great book.
I don’t mind patina, but it took my 3 tries to get an acceptable copy of of a rare naval history book.
The first arrived with the spine totally destroyed (some pages literally hanging on my a thread) and the second was shipped in such a large box that it came open during shipping, and every single page had a massive hard crease at varying angles.
Amazon handled it far as refunds, but it still took over a month, and that’s now 2 less copies of that book in existence, and it’s not exactly common.
Sadly, the local used bookstore tries hard to stock books only in "like new" condition. This removes the best "tell" for if the book is good or not - if it looks well-used, it's probably a great book.