Fellowship: Question #3 - most challenging find

Sorry for the curt answer here but work is crushing me this week...

It took me until just a few weeks ago to complete my set of the four issues of I Palantir, the first Tolkien-specific fanzine, 1960-1964. Issue number four was the problematic one - in my decade of working on collecting this set, I only saw three copies for sale - the last just a few weeks ago on eBay that had "make an offer" available and I was able to snap up. I was so jealous of Lokki who got a full set back in May! Probably the one I saw on ABE and waffled over for too long, as I only need the one issue from the set.

The complete set of the serial in Princess was the longest successful search.
Pre-internet, it was a copy of The Road Goes Ever On.

Must be the Makras chess set; you helped with introductions. Another amazing creation sparked by Tolkien.
These are 4 of the pawns, love that Bombur. The Trolls have heavy, furry tails, way cool.

There's so many.... one would certainly be the Pleasure in Reading Hobbit, though I'd still like a 1st impression of it!

I love collecting Tolkien's interviews, especially since this book never saw the light of day: https://www.amazon.com/Tolkien-Intervi ... collsguid-20&linkCode=osi

This one was especially challenging to find at a decent price: http://www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=566.

This one was extremely hard to find at any price, but I ended up with two copies at one point (I gave my extra one to a Tolkien & Lewis scholar friend): http://www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=596

I'm not sure anything was *challenging*, but a few things involved checking eBay quite a lot. Probably the thing that took the longest to actively locate would be the 1992 Unfinished Tales with the blue HoME cover. Wasn't expensive, but was certainly elusive!

Old English Exodus took a while to find an inexpensive near fine non-Library copy, but popped up when I wasn't really looking, which is often the way.

I suppose the big Challenge is all the Standard A&U/ UH Hardback Hobbits 1937 - 1990. Still 6 (IIRC) to get. And yes, the remaining ones are expensive ones, so I may never get them all.

There are two items I'd never thought to find at a reasonable price, but which I found for a steal after searching for them thoroughly:
1) Tolkien's 1925 contributions to The Review of English Studies (bound together in the Vol. I omnibus edition),
2) and Transactions of the Philological Society 1934, the original print in very good condition.

I don't ever think to similarly hit the jackpot with A Northern Venture and Leeds University Verse 1914-1924 , though one can only hope...

Stu wrote:

I suppose the big Challenge is all the Standard A&U/ UH Hardback Hobbits 1937 - 1990. Still 6 (IIRC) to get. And yes, the remaining ones are expensive ones, so I may never get them all.

I think owning these is the biggest achievement in my Tolkien collection, and very happy that all have dust-jackets, or in the case of 1st/1st and 1st/2nd parts of the original dust-jacket, and thanks to Stu for letting me know about a copy that I was not aware of

I guess for our family a signed letter by Johann Benjamin Tolkien, the grand-grandfather of Tolkien (Tolkien's grandfather was named John Benjamin Tolkien in his honor), the man who was responsible for moving Tolkien family to England from Gdansk!!! Without him, history would have been completely different:)