Great news, it's been a trial being without your site in working order. Many thanks.

While my feelings are much as Khamul's (the hardest finds are the ones I haven't found yet at right price and condition), my hardest that I have found was the large print 1975 edition of Farmer Giles of Ham.

I have a special (inexplicable) liking for large print editions and this is one of the prettiest (shown here next to a "normal" edition) with all the Pauline Baynes illustrations (just bigger).

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I also enquired about the book and the seller's reply to me was:

"The signature is genuine, as the books were signed in the editorial offices of Random House."

Mine has the box as well.

The similar LOTR deluxe was only issued in a slipcase up to 1974. As Deagol says on his website (for LOTR) "in 1974 the slipcase was replaced by a box with a printed label on the lid. Presumably the decision had been made to replace the slipcase with a box, but existing stocks of slipcases were used up before the change was made."

It would seeem odd therefore for a 1980 Poems and Stories to be in a slipcase though the seller makes a clear statement that the book "was provided by the company without the label usually attached to the front of the sleeve."

It was just sheer blind luck about 2 years ago. I happened to be loooking on ebay just as someone listed it as a buy-it-now for £75. I spent at least 10 minutes double checking the listing to make sure it was what I thought it was before buying it.

I joined Folio Society a few months later and discovered they still had a few of the limited numbered Silmarillion left for £100 (now sold out) so I bought one but am still looking for a Hobbit to complete the set. They won't be a matching set of numbers but that doesn't bother me.

As for selling it, I think (paradoxically) if i had paid £200+ for it I might consider selling but, as it is one of my best lucky finds, it has a certain sentimental value as well so will be staying on my bookshelf.