Books and other printed materials >> The Lord of the Rings: 70th Anniversary Deluxe (signed limited edition)
I'm in the UK, and my order of The Hobbit Hardback Illustrated Deluxe Edition, which I placed last Thursday (6 November), still hasn’t been shipped. I called HarperCollins on Thursday and they apologised for the delay, explaining that they were dealing with a backlog, and assured me the book would be shipped that day. That clearly didn’t happen, as I’ve received no shipping notification and the order is still marked as unshipped. This might explain why your set hasn’t been dispatched yet either. I just hope my copy will still be a first printing!
Trotter wrote:
Joaozin wrote:
Still no tracking updates for me, and I'm unable to make international calls right now. Would anyone in the UK be willing to call customer service and ask them about the orders that haven't been shipped yet?
I think you are a bit early to start contacting them, as the shipping date was only yesterday. I would wait a week and then try, but you can email them at [email protected], not the normal customer service email.
Got it. Maybe I'm just overeager to get my hands on them.
15 Nov, 2025
(edited)
2025-11-15 4:53:12 PM UTC
Edited by Joaozin on 2025-11-15 5:16:45 PM UTC
2025-11-15 4:53:12 PM UTC
Oren wrote:
I'm in the UK, and my order of The Hobbit Hardback Illustrated Deluxe Edition, which I placed last Thursday (6 November), still hasn’t been shipped. I called HarperCollins on Thursday and they apologised for the delay, explaining that they were dealing with a backlog, and assured me the book would be shipped that day. That clearly didn’t happen, as I’ve received no shipping notification and the order is still marked as unshipped. This might explain why your set hasn’t been dispatched yet either. I just hope my copy will still be a first printing!
A backlog, huh? That explains a lot. Thanks for the input. I was just expecting they'd prioritize a limited edition, but oh, well. I've learned not to expect much from Harper Collins, I ran into some trouble with them back here in Brazil.
As a general rule, contacting a supplier repeatedly within a day of when they said they would ship it is poor form. They aren’t going to run out of copies to send to people who have ordered. Some calm and common sense required, I think.
I have not received my shipping notice either and I am having them send it to a forwarding address in the UK so I would not worry too much about a geography specific issue. Sure they will send it in the coming days.
International order at launch with ETA roughly 25th Nov, as indicated above, there's certainly no need to panic.
For those who are a bit curious on how customs and package deliverires are handled in Sweden for more expensive items like this signed limited set (as we got some insights from the UK from the unboxing video), the usual procedure is that you recieve a text messsage and/or email saying that you need to give power of attorney to the transport company to bring it through customs. At the same time, you pay the customs fee (if any) and also are given the option to specify a delivery method. It can be easy to miss this email if you use an alternative email address for ordering stuff online so that your regular one is not overflowing with spam.
I think the default is delivery to your door, but I always pick delivery to my local gas station instead. This may seem very strange, but the government owned postal service ("Posten") was sold and converted into a private company partly owned by the government ("Postnord") so almost all local postal service places where closed down and supermarkets or gas stations were given the job to give out packages as a proxy delgate instead. In Sweden, many companies that do home deliveries are based on the gig economy and the workers are overworked, stressed and have an unforgiving schedule, so the packages are not always in that good shape.
DHL, which is the company HarperCollins hired for Sweden, is much better but I might not be at home when they want to deliver (in which case it automatically goes to the gas station anyway) or they might leave it outside the door which I am not comfortable with at all. There is also a tendency for such delivery companies to avoid making the delivery to your home altogether to save time enough to actually get their work done and they just put all packages at the proxy delegate right away and send a note through the system that you were not at home when the delivery was attempted even though you obviously were.
I hold no grudges at all as I know how rough the transport sector can be, but it just gives me peace of mind to have it delivered directly to a proxy delegate and that system has been virtually flawless for me. Don't think I have had any package (sufficiently) dinged to be upset with this method but perhaps 5-10% for home deliveries (mostly from lesser serious delivery companies that rely on gig workers, but I think e. g. Amazon is phasing those out). That being said, I think they are improving as the number of transport companies in the Swedish market is stabilizing.
When you get to the delegate (in my case the gas station), you typically show your ID card and a 4 digit code sent to your phone, email or snail mail and you can take out the package. An alternative method that is getting more and more common is that the transport companies offer you to verify with your electronic ID (called BankID, since it is created by all major banks in collaboration). The transport company emails you a QR code or the QR code is on the tracking information view and you scan it with the Bank ID app on a smartphone and then enter your super secret pass code to verify that it is you. Then you get a new QR code that you can show to the delegate (without physical ID) and you can take out the package. However, if another person gets a hold of this second QR code, they can pick out the package even if they are unauthorized. This system usually works good, as many who work at delegates feel that the 4 digit code handling is a bit annoying.
I think the default is delivery to your door, but I always pick delivery to my local gas station instead. This may seem very strange, but the government owned postal service ("Posten") was sold and converted into a private company partly owned by the government ("Postnord") so almost all local postal service places where closed down and supermarkets or gas stations were given the job to give out packages as a proxy delgate instead. In Sweden, many companies that do home deliveries are based on the gig economy and the workers are overworked, stressed and have an unforgiving schedule, so the packages are not always in that good shape.
DHL, which is the company HarperCollins hired for Sweden, is much better but I might not be at home when they want to deliver (in which case it automatically goes to the gas station anyway) or they might leave it outside the door which I am not comfortable with at all. There is also a tendency for such delivery companies to avoid making the delivery to your home altogether to save time enough to actually get their work done and they just put all packages at the proxy delegate right away and send a note through the system that you were not at home when the delivery was attempted even though you obviously were.
I hold no grudges at all as I know how rough the transport sector can be, but it just gives me peace of mind to have it delivered directly to a proxy delegate and that system has been virtually flawless for me. Don't think I have had any package (sufficiently) dinged to be upset with this method but perhaps 5-10% for home deliveries (mostly from lesser serious delivery companies that rely on gig workers, but I think e. g. Amazon is phasing those out). That being said, I think they are improving as the number of transport companies in the Swedish market is stabilizing.
When you get to the delegate (in my case the gas station), you typically show your ID card and a 4 digit code sent to your phone, email or snail mail and you can take out the package. An alternative method that is getting more and more common is that the transport companies offer you to verify with your electronic ID (called BankID, since it is created by all major banks in collaboration). The transport company emails you a QR code or the QR code is on the tracking information view and you scan it with the Bank ID app on a smartphone and then enter your super secret pass code to verify that it is you. Then you get a new QR code that you can show to the delegate (without physical ID) and you can take out the package. However, if another person gets a hold of this second QR code, they can pick out the package even if they are unauthorized. This system usually works good, as many who work at delegates feel that the 4 digit code handling is a bit annoying.
Strider wrote:
Someone's trying to re-sell this set on AbeBooks for £1,750. 🤨
Anybody spending, or willing to spend that sort of money will hopefully research the item.
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