Inspired by garm's comment on a copy of "The Return of the King",

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/Return-of-the-K ... 87ff&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14

and its mention of priority on printing errors, I was interested in this copy and its mention of the variants on the text on page 281, which is described on Neil Holford's website

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

"Variants of the text on page 281
There is another area of damaged text on the last line of page 281. There are two states, priority as follows:

1. There is a gap in the middle of the word Me n.
2. The gap has been closed - Men.

The small scale survey by Steven M. Frisby found 4 out of 10 copies checked had the defective text."

The priority for the error on page 49 has been established as

"Variants of the text on page 49
The next set of variants concern the text on page 49. Priority as follows:

1. Undamaged text. No signature mark '4'.
2. Damaged text. No signature mark '4'.
3. Damaged text. Signature mark '4' present."

and the copy on Ebay has state 3 on page 49 and state 1 on page 281, my copy has state 1 on page 49 and state 2 on page 281, which leads me to question the priorities for page 281 and that should it be

"Variants of the text on page 281
There is another area of damaged text on the last line of page 281. There are two states, priority as follows:

1. The gap has been closed - Men.
2. There is a gap in the middle of the word Me n."

On looking at my Second Impression ROTK, page 281 is state 1.

This could have occurred because the priorities for page 49 were orginally thought to have been state 3 first, in which case page 281 would have a matching gap in Me n.

What do you think? Does anyone have a copy with state 1 of page 49 and a gap in Me n on page 281?

Andrew