Two more examples of tolkien's signature have just appeared on ABE books. A very good comparison to this book in my opinion.

First ABEBooks item

Secod ABEBooks item

Dior

Well spotted, Dior - and thanks for all your thoughts, everyone.

wellinghall

Just wanted to say welcome to the boards, and thanks for the thoughts on the signed book.

Aw man,

you guys start talking about eBay signatures, so someone goes and whips out a forgery to sell a piece of junk:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220285848222

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Joining this thread a little belatedly:

In regard to the book sold on eBay, if the signature is genuine, Carl's explanation as to how it got into the book seems plausible. But Beren's question about why volume 4 remains, and I'm not without doubts about that signature. The dots are indeed uncharacteristic, and it seems to me that the signer had some hesitation in writing some of the letters. Not enough to discount it entirely, just to raise some warning flags. By the way, Tolkien seems not to have frequented Queen's College, Oxford: Christina and I record in our Chronology only one reference to it, a dinner there with J.A.W. Bennett in 1946. (Tolkien also dined at Queen's College, Cambridge, but that's another animal altogether.)

I have much more trouble with the two typed items noticed by Dior. The first problem is a typewritten letter from around 1943, when Tolkien was invariably, as far as Christina and I have seen, writing his letters in manuscript. The second problem is that the typewriting doesn't look like Tolkien's -- wrong font, wrong fit of letters, atypical typos, use of spaces, and margins. And then there are the signatures, with dots askew and some letters (such as T and k) which I find questionable. Also, I have to wonder why Tolkien would type out the "Eala Earendil" quotation by itself and then sign it: this wouldn't be typical of him, so adds to my suspicions.

Wayne