I have recently been doing some research on early boxed sets of The Lord of the Rings. The fruits of my labours can be read here:

http://www.tolkienbooks.net/html/1st-boxed-lr.htm

If you own a pre-1965 Allen & Unwin LotR boxed set I would be interested to know if it matches the details I have listed in the article - especially the material used to cover the box, the type of construction (stapled or not) and which impression of each book it contains.