What is grade A, B and C used clothing?

Clean, wearable clothing in close-to-new condition, with no stains, holes, pilling or fading a customer would notice. In fashion categories, current styles and recognised brands. Grade A, sometimes called cream, sells to secondhand retailers, vintage and online resellers, and premium export markets. It carries the highest price per kilo and the lowest tolerance for faults.

Wearable clothing with light, visible wear: some fading, light pilling, a missing button. Grade B is the volume grade for wholesale markets in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe, and for traders selling by the piece. It is never wet, mouldy or contaminated.

Worn, faded, stained or damaged items that are still usable as utility clothing, for re-making, or cut into wipers. Priced to its use. Anything non-rewearable should go to recycling, not into a wearable bale.

• Credential: unsorted clothing as collected, sold by weight; the buyer does all the sorting.
• Originals: collected stock with little or nothing picked out. Ask exactly what was removed.
• Mixed bales: several categories or grades in one bale.
• Mixed rags / wiping rags: textiles for cutting into industrial wipers.

Grade labels are not standardised. Two sellers can ship very different stock under the same word. On Ragtrail, the grade definition, tolerances and any category or season weighting are written into the trade record before loading, and claims are judged against that text and the loading evidence. Browse Grade A, Grade B and Grade C categories.