Is there a way to tell if a hardcover book is supposed to have a dust cover?  I requested "The Amber Spyglass", ISBN 9780679879268.  Because I was trying to replace a missing book from a set, I requested that book specifically because the cover matched the other 2 from the set, and had a dustcover RC in place.

The book I got has all the right information (ISBN, publication date, format), but there's no dust cover.  That said, the cover isn't the typical fabric cover of hardcovers (sorry, don't know the technical term), but is shiny and has a design and illustration on it (not the image I've seen on all the ISBN listings, though). 

Do books with that shiny, illustrated cover ever have dust covers?  I had assumed there would be one because of everything I saw regarding this ISBN, but I don't have any experience with something like this. 

Thanks for your help. 

one possibility although this is only a guess the one you got might be a book club edition.

The shiny cover usually means it's a library edition, but those generally have a different ISBN than the typical HC sold by stores.

Usually if the cover of the book is what is usually on the dust jacket, then the book usually didn't ever have a dust jacket. Having said that, I have seen books with dust jackets that have a beautiful book cover so you could actually remove the dust jacket and still have a nice looking book (that's seldom though). Pat

I had Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator that had both covers, the dust jacket was the same as the shiny cover on the book.