It's not common, but it happens occasionally with all books of that design. If it arrived in that condition it's worth asking for a replacement, although how much faff that would be depends on who you ordered from.
Get ahold of WotC. They replaced my PHB with just a few photos of its pages falling out. From what I’ve heard they are still pretty good at fixing these issues. Please let us know how it goes?
Hi,
I have received the replacement copy (WotC customer support was great)
However, it has a similar problem, just on the bottom side of the spine.
Anybody here has a "good" copy of van richten alt. cover?