Thanks much to all who posted. I, too, found the various letters most interesting. Your comments have seemingly confirmed what I suspected: that my calendar is a rather rare, very personal, and precious item. I will treasure it. As I note on my website, he had to have signed it within a month or two of his passing. It is thus wonderful yet bittersweet.

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

>Your comments have seemingly confirmed what I suspected: that my calendar is a rather rare, very personal, and precious item.<

Yes, it is all that. :) A thing of beauty; a joy forever.

Looking back on this old(ish) thread, I see I forgot to mention that Tolkien would also sign with initials only;

To K.S. with greeting from J.R.R.T

and

M.E.G. from J.R.R.T

- both on copies of 'Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics'. The first is to the man who taught him Anglo-Saxon at Oxford, Kenneth Sisam. The second is to his pupil Elaine Griffiths, who was instrumental in the publication of TH.

These copies would have been signed in July 1937; that is, only a couple of months before the publication of TH.