Does anyone think this is the real page?

Mr. Underhill wrote:

My guess is someone paid it or close to it. Could be someone who doesn't know what they're doing...there are about 10 '61 A&U Hobbits for sale on ABE books right now at a fraction of that price.

It is possible, but a similar eBay search would also have yielded other, better and earlier copies much cheaper. I definitely smell shenanigans here. I know people can be stupid, but even people with money to waste usually are willing to to do an extra couple of clicks.

huan68 wrote:

Does anyone this this is the real page?

WRITER J. R. R. Tolkien autograph, signed guest book page mounted

154316048702

Seller: brandesautographs

(8358)

Ended Mar 17, 2022

This item ended more than 90 days ago

Nope. And the uppercase "E" seems to be written in the same way by many different people.

Stu wrote:

Mr. Underhill wrote:

My guess is someone paid it or close to it. Could be someone who doesn't know what they're doing...there are about 10 '61 A&U Hobbits for sale on ABE books right now at a fraction of that price.

It is possible, but a similar eBay search would also have yielded other, better and earlier copies much cheaper. I definitely smell shenanigans here. I know people can be stupid, but even people with money to waste usually are willing to to do an extra couple of clicks.

Ya, could be the case...wouldn't put it past this dealer. Could have a situation where it's marked as sold at the sticker price but the dealer accepted less afterwards or something like that.
Sometimes sellers on ebay will mark their products as sold so that they can relist with a new listing and get back at the top of the newly listed items to get more eyes on their stuff. I have noticed another dealer with overpriced Tolkien items doing this.

It’s not something I’d have thought to have seen at all on eBay.

I have seen it before, looks like the dealer has cut it down. It is Tolkien's signature.

Trotter wrote:

I have seen it before, looks like the dealer has cut it down. It is Tolkien's signature but I don't think he wrote "Exeter" as his college name.

I knew I had seen it before. What was the explanation for the handwriting anomalies? Was the college written in by someone else (a warden or somesuch) each time a visitor signed it?

I edited my reply, looking at the second 'e' in Exeter it is the same as the 'e' in Tolkien, so I think Tolkien did write both. He did not write the letter 'e' like this after the end of the war.

Trotter wrote:

I edited my reply, looking at the second 'e' in Exeter it is the same as the 'e' in Tolkien, so I think Tolkien did write both. He did not write the letter 'e' like this after the end of the war.

Yeah, there seem to be an awful lot of "E"s of that style in the list. Presumably was a popular way of rendering the letter in that time period.

The frame with the small picture of Tolkien that the current seller has placed the page in (hopefully not actually cutting it down) is truly an awful thing. Autograph sellers are so tacky.

Trotter wrote:

I edited my reply, looking at the second 'e' in Exeter it is the same as the 'e' in Tolkien, so I think Tolkien did write both. He did not write the letter 'e' like this after the end of the war.

Yes, both are in Tolkien's hand. And it's not quite true that Tolkien didn't write his "e"s like this after the end of the war; I have seen later examples of it.