What About Dust Jacket Restoration?

Should you do it?

From a piece on Booktryst...

The community of book collectors, as usual, had the final word. No good. A book with its dust jacket present will always bring a premium. But a book with a restored dust jacket will fetch less than the same book with an unrestored jacket. "Untouched" remains the standard, whether binding or jacket. The less monkeyed with the better.

One reason why the community has put the hex on restored dust jackets is simply because DJ restoration has become so fine that it is often extremely difficult to tell if work has been done. When the dust jacket to a highly desirable and expensive first edition is rarer than the book itself, i.e. The Great Gatsby, and its presence increases the value of the book tenfold, the temptation to get clandestinely creative is high.

As long as the dust jacket is clearly identified as restored, no problem. But books with restored DJs and unidentified as such by the unscrupulous are floating around the marketplace and dealers and collectors have to pay special attention.