This is incredible...can you share how you managed to put such a collection together? Any stories of interest?

Could you do a photo of the spines of the 1st edition Hobbits, just the 6 different original bindings as the Wiki entry states that they were slightly different colours?

Entshelm, I would just buy the Hobbit books when opportunity struck. It was much harder for me in the 70’s to collect than it has been recently...and I was more money challenged back then. So I would say most of these purchases are very heavily skewed towards the more later years of my collecting frenzy.

And I guess the only story of interest might be that my most pristine first state Hobbit came from a seller who was just dumping things and wasn’t really a collector. I bought it not quite knowing the overall condition and was almost shocked at what I received...a near fine copy. So that was a complete win.

Trotter, yes, I ‘ll grab a representative copy from each state and take a photo of them together. I have previously gone back and forth with Berelach regarding the bindings (texture and colors) as some of mine don’t exactly conform to the suggested variations attributed to the states. It could be of course fading, etc.

Trotter, here you go. The one image shows 5 of the 6 states. Top row from left to right are states 1, 2 and 3. Bottom row are states 4b and 4c. I do not have a “clean” 4a state...the only one I have is a library rebind. Also added an image of the spines all together.

The last picture might be of interest too. This shows two 1st state copies with different bindings. This I believe is not noted in the wiki article but is mentioned in Wayne’s Bibliography.

Thanks

Have to agree on the colours of the bindings, do not appear to look as different as the wiki states.

Trotter, I’ve had another person, in different lighting, look at my books and it is hard to see some of the suggested color differences between the states. However, the cloth texture is a tad easier to discern (e.g., linen-like vs. even threaded). I tend to focus on the maps/text block deltas to ID the state of the book.

Wow!!!!!!!!