Fair point Khamul - I just read somewhere from HC that CT would not be doing any more signings. You are right, though, that there are a couple of thousand sigs out there at least.

I think a lot of the thing with ebay is that it just depends whether you can get two people battling it out at the same time. Interesting story for you: a couple of years back I sold the few Tolkien books I had when I thought we were moving abroad. There was nothing much there - the US Deluxe 50th anniversary edition LOTR, the Alan Lee illustrated Hobbit and LOTR single volume edition, the Ted Nasmith Silmarillion and (and here's the interesting bit), the single volume HOME part one of three (brown cover).

Anyway, I listed the whole lot for £100 twice and it didn't go, so I ended up breaking it into separate books. Well imagine my amazement when the HOME book went for £130 by itself. The point is that at that moment in time it was 'wanted' enough to be worth nearly four times what I paid for it brand new three years before. Bizarre! Anyway, the question is 'what made that book worth £130?' (It wasn't a first as I think they came out in 2000 and I bought mine new from play.com in Feb 2007).

I take your point!

The real problem here is eBay. I'm not sure if there is any point in quoting freak prices & holding these up as examples of 'value' or 'worth'. Some eBay Tolkien stuff goes for nonsense money, and final auction price can be influenced by many different factors. You have to weigh these factors up in judging whether a price is typical or not. A lot of stuff went for higher prices when the films were current, since interest, and competition for items was higher. And, some bidders just seem to like other people to bid against. It reinforces their belief that the (current) price must reflect worth since someone is clearly biding this amount for it. As for that HoME, well, sometimes people have far too many books, and they just don't like buying lots for only one title. (As I often quote) ADCBooks sold a copy of PoME for £830, yet many full sets fail to realise reserve, with bidding often fizzling out with the price under £1000. How does this make sense?...

BH

I'm following this discussion for some time now and I find it a strange discussion all together. Ebay is 'no' guideline to find any value... one day something will be sold, but stay unsold for the coming months. Sometimes items are in demand, sometimes they are not. The value of Tolkien books moves up and down as demand for particular books goes up or down. Ebay is a crazy place and strange things happen there.

Abebooks could be another source to find the value of a book, but you need to know the sellers, some list to sell fast, some list to wait for the one crazy person to come buy and spent the big bucks. My experience is that most abebooks tend to be too high.

I also strongly believe that the value of a book can be completely different depending on the person selling it. When you look at auctions for example, sotheby's tends to grab higher prices for items then smaller auction houses.

Specialized bookdealers like David Miller (and myself) manage to sell rare Tolkien books at prices (much) higher than abebook dealers. This is because we know who searches and have build up relations with collectors worldwide. At the other hand we sometimes drop in books at prices lower than abebooks dealers... especially the signed materials to lower the market price and keep collecting fun for everyone.

Now how do I stick a price on a book... like for example the super deluxe editions. First of all, you need to know if there is interest in a book (and that is easy for us to follow). So far I did not buy a single copy of the super deluxe Sigurd and Gudrun. There is no demand at all. I do however stock many copies of the Children of Hurin, all lower numbers, and have no intention to sell these for the next 10 years. As with the other Super Deluxe editions, this is about the time they need to create a demand. For example the Super Deluxe edition of The Silmarillion... any copy you offer me I can sell the next day. No problem there. That is what pushes up the price. High demand, higher value.

It has nothing to do with anything else really. The only true answer I read so far is that anything is only worth what one person is willing to pay for it. Only it has to be said, that also this is related to time. Today no one will pay 1000 Euro for a super deluxe Children of Hurin (however I sold 3 copies of the lowest numbers for exactly that amount already the last year), but maybe one day people will. Book dealing is a strange business there are days you can buy stuff real cheap and make some profit over time, sometimes you feel like buying something real cheap and in the end need to wait years and in the end loose money by selling it. What I have seen however is that most 'rare' books need at least 10 years before they suddenly resurface (and mostly come in groups).

The only advise I can give at the moment is that either you do like most collectors and house the books in a good place and treasure them and love them because you find them great and don't mind too much about the value.

Or you all try and sell them one day and make tons of profit, but you will need to know when to catch the train. It is logic to me that Andy managed to sell his PoMe for much more then many others; he has the true heart of a business man and knows to play the game of book dealing better then any other. Does it mean the value he managed to sell it for is now the current value? No, but it was when he sold it...
it is a complex question and as said above, it all depends on who is selling and timing is crucial.

Fascinating stuff Beren - this is fast becoming a really interesting thread!

Your sales for 1000 Euros (all be it low numbers) are encouraging though.

Fascinating indeed Beren. However, I suspect you had your bookdealer hat on for most of that!

Look, you're perfectly correct about specialized book dealers like you, David, and Andy (--one would include Rene in this category too.) --but you guys (or you at least) are dealing at the very top of the market. You have lovely copies of many very fine items; most low print run deluxes, with some very rare & scarce stuff too. I'd trust your judgement on pricing these to sell, but listen, there is an enormous amount of Tolkien on somewhere like Abebooks with very little of it priced to sell.

I'm, to be honest, astounded that anyone would have paid you over £350 for CoH. Sorry, this is naive buying. Why would you be so lazy as to not buy direct from the publisher? Yes, on release, it was maximum purchase two per person, and they wouldn't ship to the US; but, come now, the argument about low numbers has been discussed here before.

Within living memory, for some of the older collectors here (myself not included), the book community held (I think, historically) fairly ambivalent views on these manufactured 'collectors' 'deluxe' editions; false, created, manufactured rarities . I think these same people must shake their heads at today’s low number chasers. This ultimately has very little relation to value, quality, rarity, or worth.

I don't particularly object to people having old sets of LotRs from the late fifties in decent nick, now finding they have books worth quite a bit of money. But it kind of annoys me that books which maybe will be worth a few quid in decades to come are already commanding the kind of prices you might imagine them going for in years to come.

I agree with everything else regarding selling; you know far about this than me. Timing is crucial, and some fairly simple practises in good accurate listings, being trustworthy, offering a superior buying experience (nothing specifically to do with book selling) etc etc --these would all seem to allow books to be sold for far higher prices, should that be your aim.

BH

Sorry, one last point: Andy's PoME wasn't worth £830 in 2007 either!

BH

In my book there is no such thing as aiming to make "as much profit as possible", in fact my rule is very tight on that matter (and I know David uses the same law in setting a price). We most of the time work with a fixed margin we aim at (that mostly includes free shipping costs, insurance and possibility for a reduction)... resulting in that when we manage to track down a very rare copy and after some negotiating pay a certain amount (mostly depending on what we believe the book can be sold for); the selling price is already set in the process. So sometimes we get lucky and are able to sell some books at a price we think is very good or lower then we would actually estimate it. But since we were able to buy it cheap we can offer it cheap. Some dealers prefer to add a lot extra, but we prefer selling and finding a collector to treasure this rare book above making monster profits. Guess it is because we truly love to 'find' books and find our pleasure in the 'hunt' and not so much in the 'gain'.

Of course, since we are collectors ourselves, we always find it hard to sell some pieces or do not think it is time yet to sell some pieces... I know Rene also follows that rule... it indeed happens we list books at prices we do not expect to sell at. An example was the Cor Blok painting Rene had listed on his website, he did not expect to sell it at the asking price, but was willing to let it go if someone was crazy enough to pay 'that amount' for it. It did however sell and both parties are happy. So does it mean this painting is worth this price? Not really, but some collectors do spent crazy money to obtain unique items like that.

As for myself, I only started selling books to be able to buy books and only made it into a 'real' bookstore because I ran into trouble with the Belgian authorities, who forced me to 'legalize my hobby' because the money involved was getting too big (this happens when buying 1st impression Hobbits ;) ). Still in the process I learned a lot and bought and sold a lot and I see my personal collection as something fluid. As for now I think it was years ago that I actually bought anything from ebay or abebooks, since I use other sources to acquire my books. While the normal book market has nearly crashed completely the top books sell just as before.

When you would decide to move into this field, here are some things that are of value. Collectors only buy the best pieces, like mostly the earliest forms possible (1st impressions or proofs), true limited editions (not the books that were released the last couple of years),...

Very important are dust jackets, for example the 1st US The Hobbit jacket is in itself more valuable then the book itself. Any flaw in the jackets can reduce the value of any book enormously.

As for signed books there are some huge differences as well. One should always look how the book is signed, is it on the title page or on the front page (huge price difference already), is the signature of the same period as the book or was it signed much later (again a huge price difference), is it an association copy or only a signature, is there a dedication,... in fact when dealing with rare books any flaw, any little abnormality can completely kill the value.

Same goes for letters,... for example I tend to stay away of typed letters and only like handwritten ones. Value is mostly determined by the content and the amount of pages. If you go on ebay you either find fakes or you pay big time, on abebooks you almost need to be a very rich person to be able to acquire anything. The only good way to acquire letters is through the smaller auction houses. But be careful, if you notice any flaw, any abnormality,... don't buy it and stay away from it. Always go for absolute quality.

The value of books... it is a very long story. For me the most valuable books are still books that mean something personal to me. Every book I have has a story and some books are there for priceless. Some books will never leave my house and not because they can be worth tons of money, but because how I personally feel about them. This is the true value of books and no money can buy it. I guess you need to be a collector to understand!

Latest addition to the collection is up:

http://collectingtolkien.blogspot.com ... s-folio-edition-2002.html

bruffyboy, interesting blog. I look forward to future instalments

On the question of Folio Society editions - it's interesting you raise the matter of the paper used in the production. This is Caxton wove paper, which is very nice and all that; but this latest ed. of the Folio LotR seems a bit, well, lightweight to me, and I think that's partly due to the paper, as well as the 'vegetable parchment' boards, which I don't much like.

The original Folio set was a very different matter; very solid, quarter bound in leather and using a superior paper, called 'Guard Bridge Silver City' which has lost none of its colour or crispness over the years.

I really like the 1990 'Elephant hide' set, with its pattern of rings on the front covers of the books. The red topstain is the colour of blood, and the head and tail bands really set the books off nicely. This ed. uses 'Monument' wove paper.

If future values are of concern to you, then the one to go for would probably be the limited edition of 2002. This, with its corresponding editions of TH and Silm, is a very nice looking set; printed on 'St. Paul's' wove paper, and quarter bound in Morrocan goatskin with sides of Indian silk. Only 1750 numbered copies of each; I imagine they sold out fairly quickly?

I like the illustrations; Eric fraser is an extremely accomplished illustrator. The pictures were actually made by the then Princess Margarethe (now H.M. Queen Margarethe) of Denmark, who loved LotR so much, she made a series of drawings based on the story and sent them to Tolkien, who was very taken with them. However, they're not really up to publication standards, so Eric Fraser was asked to 'realise' them for publication, and I think they work very well.