I'm not sure what to make of this -

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1934-Pentat ... ks_UK&hash=item3a7d3c59db

- is this supposed to be inscribed by Tolkien or not? What is meant by ' DTS 74' etc?

The seller is claiming a tentative and unproven friendship with Tolkien as far as I can see, "1934 Pentateuchus of Henry St John Hart, JRR Tolkien's Friend and Contemporary"

So no real connection that I can see, or any connection at all.

Readers of Vinyar Tengwar will know of the connexion as Henry St John Hart is mentioned in VT49 in an article on Elvish inscriptions.

The DTS numbers are references to Mellonath Daeron Index of Tengwa Specimina:

http://www.forodrim.org/daeron/mdtci.html

Deagol,

Thanks for the correction and clarification.

Trotter

Thanks, Deagol. So, reading the seller's spiel again, with information from the page you supplied a link to - we can say that this item once belonged to a friend of Tolkien's, but the item itself has no connection whatsoever with JRR.

Now, I got confused whilst reading this sales description. I often wonder, when seeing convoluted pieces of writing such as this, how folk manage who do not have English as a first language. To take a wildly different example - there are folk (native English speakers among them) who are convinced that Lewis and Lacon's 'Fall of Gondolin'' has approval from the Estate. Largely because of wooly descriptions such as we have here.