Officially Lost All Respect for Easton Press

Oh my....

So come on you crazy collectors. How many of you here will be buying this academic marvel?

Unfortunate news. Being a "crazy collector", I will be buying (not that I really want to of course).

But being a completist (and also having all the other Easton Tolkien/Tolkien Related editions) - I feel I have no choice.

I'm not an Easton Press collector myself.

At some point, though, I think it might be interesting for someone with a lot more knowledge than me to document all the changes the core set (LotR, Hobbit, Silm) has gone through... every time they go back to print it seems like the size, color, ribbing, endpapers or something else changes (based on materials and tooling at hand). There's no printing indication, but one should be able to find identifying characteristics to know if you have a first impression or not.

remy wrote:
Being a "crazy collector"

Just to be clear, I mean the term affectionately :)

I have at least 200 versions of Beethoven's 9th on almost every format possible. I really can't call anybody crazy for collecting.

onthetrail wrote:

I have at least 200 versions of Beethoven's 9th on almost every format possible. I really can't call anybody crazy for collecting.

Elcaset??

I stopped buying Easton Press after Beowulf, and I'll probably get rid of all my EP stuff at some point. It is all boxed.

I honestly really don't understand anyone buying what as actually a *bad book* buy a *bad author* for the sake of completism -- it isn't even a work written by Tolkien. That's just madness, IMHO.

EP are a plastic-coated-pig-leather-covered tacky embarrassment at this point. HarperCollins are paragons of fantastic design compared to EP, who are the laziest publisher on the planet (because they aren't actually a publisher, they are a gaudy collectables company, MPI).

Urulókë wrote:
I'm not an Easton Press collector myself.

At some point, though, I think it might be interesting for someone with a lot more knowledge than me to document all the changes the core set (LotR, Hobbit, Silm) has gone through... every time they go back to print it seems like the size, color, ribbing, endpapers or something else changes (based on materials and tooling at hand). There's no printing indication, but one should be able to find identifying characteristics to know if you have a first impression or not.

There are a handful of changes (e.g. the end-papers for LoTR when it was as part of a wider series and the size of The Hobbit after the first impression), but the core books have been mostly unchanged -- which is why they look so dated. Other than LoTR/Hobbit/Sil which have had a million prints, most have only had a couple of prints so far.

Stu wrote:
I honestly really don't understand anyone buying what as actually a *bad book* buy a *bad author* for the sake of completism -- it isn't even a work written by Tolkien. That's just madness

Yes. Not sure what your point is.

Are you suggesting that your collection framework is not mad but mine is "just madness".

Just because you "don't understand" it - then it must be madness.

Or are you trying to say something else?

remy wrote:

Stu wrote:
I honestly really don't understand anyone buying what as actually a *bad book* buy a *bad author* for the sake of completism -- it isn't even a work written by Tolkien. That's just madness

Yes. Not sure what your point is.

Are you suggesting that your collection framework is not mad but mine is "just madness".

Just because you "don't understand" it - then it must be madness.

Or are you trying to say something else?

I'm saying exactly what I said - It is an opinion, and was pretty concise (and I make no apology for it). My collecting framework, FWIW, is that *everything* I have collected was a completely pointless exercise, which I would not remotely engage in again (being honest). Whatever floats your boat, really. But for *me*, it is madness to buy a product you have no respect for to tick a box. That said, I don't remotely care what you spend your money on - it is just an assessment of what I consider to be mad, which is an extremely relative term. I'm pretty sure any normal person would consider my (limited) collection of Tolkien to be mad. They would be correct by any sensible measure.