"Many people have enjoyed the Tolkien Weekends at Sarehole Mill over the last eight years. Though the name has changed to the 'Middle-earth Weekend,' all the usual attractions for fans of JRR Tolkien can be found. This year’s weekend will focus on 'Myths and Monsters' mixing Tolkien’s local connections, his translation and academic works on Beowulf and one of his earliest essays in story writing which featured 'a great green dragon'."

There will be dragons patrolling the field and, no doubt, serving as targets for those who wish to emulate Bard’s defeat of Smaug with the Bowmen of Swanshurst. Other attractions include a falconry display, rope and food historians and in the Mill café there is an exhibition by Bob Blackham (author of The Roots of Tolkien’s Middle-Earth) of Postcards from The Shire. Middle-earth Weekend 2008 will be held at Sarehole Mill and Recreation Ground, Cole Bank Road, Hall Green, Birmingham on May 17 & 18, 2008. Thanks to our friend Ian from the Tolkien Society for news about the event!"

http://www.theonering.net/torwp/2008/ ... and-monsters-at-the-mill/

I think you can be pretty certain that priced copies did not originate from Book Clubs. Yes, one or two may have slipped through the net; but Book Clubs would almost always sell copies (regardless of origin or intended market) without prices -regardless of how this was done.

So, while I agree that un-priced copies (clipped or genuinely unpriced) may have come from either market; priced copies almost certainly did not come from book clubs.

Does anyone have any real concrete evidence that Book Clubs regularly distributed books with prices still on them? If not, then I think it can be said with a fair degree of certainty that priced copies are not Book Club (and are therefore trade).

BH

Ted Nasmith posted his summary on his blog...

Ted Nasmith's blog

Oh dear ... that's a nice post to run into unsuspectingly ... and find myself large as life slap bang in the middle of it!

I'm the overgrown Hobbit talking to Jef Murray over the book of poetry he illustrated just recently.

Great report though! Marbretherese's as well as Iolanthe's.

thanks deagol

Here is an example

This is an LOTR set.
The headband is the red and yellow piece of material at the spine.
It is blue and white in THE SILMARILLION.

Somebody contacted me recently for a valuation on some HOME volumes. They had bought 2 sets of volumes in the 80s, all from a book club, but some of the early volumes (1-5) were Allen & Unwin/Unwin Hyman copies, so it looks like BCA purchased A&U copies when their own editions of 1-5 were sold out and then price-clipped them. Just another complication to add to the mix!

can someone post a scan showing what the headband looks like. i guess i just don't understand what this is. thanks

thanks remy, seems you touched on just about everything. i find it very ironic and funny that collectors are forced to acknowledge the possibility of having a bce they paid $100+ for (because of the fact that bce are almost always worthless), and i am one of these collectors. But it does come back to the fact that it is, in most cases, impossible to know for sure if the book is a bce.

For the UK HoME Series, I don't think it is possible to distinguish between Book Club and Trade Editions for Volumes 6 thru 12. Book Club Editions of Vols 1-5 are easily distinguished.

Some Book Club Editions even had printed prices on the Dustwrapper (to the best of my knowledge), so even sticking to collecting the Priced Copies does guarantee that they did not originate from the Book Club.

Possibly (maybe someone can contradict this) the only way to absolutely guarantee that any of Vols 6-12 was a Trade Edition is to buy copies with added Price Labels. But I don't think all of Vols 6-12 had price labels added at some stage. I have seen copies of Vol 9 with Publisher Price Labels and I think I remember seeing one on Vol 12.

So basically, for Vols 6-12, I don't think it really matters to anybody if the book came from a Book Club or not - as nobody can tell the difference.

Just my 2 cents on how I understand this at the moment. Maybe someone else can provide futher information.