Joaozin wrote:

Gerontius Took wrote:

EmilK, Likewise I have no limited edition versions of this book. I didn’t fancy the Folio version for a few reasons, size, price and materials, I don’t want a bookshelf full of dead animals. The Old Guard collectors may scoff and look with disdain ( just look at reddit, Facebook and even here ) at this edition, this is clearly not aimed at the high end collector. It’s a very nice looking edition of my favourite book signed by my favourite artist. It’s a no brainer to me.
Tolkien readers/collectors aren’t a fixed set, the old guys possibly have everything they would want, but like any fandom, it renews. The more new folk buying new Tolkien editions the better.

We're on the same boat. Old collectors are often myopic, and fail to see that they are not the only ones interested in buying books from arguably the most popular fantasy author in history. Some even considered the £250 price difference between this edition and FS' to be negligible, even as HC aims this publication at the international market. I live in Brazil, £250 more would add quite a hefty R$ 2000 to the final price in our currency. Alan Lee's signature may be common in the anglosphere, but it sure as hell is a rare find down here.

It's my favorite book by my favorite author signed by my favorite artist and with a nice design to top it all off. It also comes with the benefit of not being made out of a dead animal's skin that would most certainly get obliterated in a tropical climate.

Great post. Totally agree. I think this edition will surprise a lot of collectors: it looks awesome to me. I just wish I could pull the trigger but great to know folks in Brazil and far corners of the world will enjoy this.

Trotter wrote:

Strider wrote:

Trotter wrote:

Disappointed that your YouTube history does not appear to include TolkienGuide videos 😍

That's great. Hope you like the content.

Trotter when will the next video be ?

Gerontius Took wrote:

Trotter wrote:

Strider wrote:

Trotter wrote:

Disappointed that your YouTube history does not appear to include TolkienGuide videos 😍

That's great. Hope you like the content.

Trotter when will the next video be ?

Hopefully this weekend.

Gerontius Took wrote:

The Old Guard collectors may scoff and look with disdain ( just look at reddit, Facebook and even here ) at this edition, this is clearly not aimed at the high end collector. It’s a very nice looking edition of my favourite book signed by my favourite artist. It’s a no brainer to me.

I certainly recognize many thoughtful things about this analysis, but I hasten to add that the majority of comments from the community on most discussion sites that I have seen have been negative (regardless of how long they seem to have been a collector). Perhaps this has been a contributing factor to it not having been sold out yet, above and beyond the objective features of the product. I should also note that it seems that some veteran collectors did indeed buy this item.

I completely agree with your assessment that this is a decent to good purchase for people who do not have a signed limited edition, but want a newly produced one with good quality paper and beautiful art that does not require scowering the overpriced second-hand market (although I sometimes feel that "overpriced" has losts its meaning considering that some ebay listings for this item is double the HarperCollins already inflated price).

Besides the price (which the general consensus appears to be that it was too high), I think a lot of negativity comes from the context that they released a sufficiently similar edition last year. If they had not, perhaps the general attitude in the broader Tolkien collector's community would have been less negative.

Lake Town Geezer wrote:

I would have preferred this edition to the ridiculously over-sized Folio one TBH (that also has a very flimsy and therefore useless slip case). Alas, I bought the Folio edition and am stuck with it, so cannot get this one as well. While I could sell the Folio one, it just isnt worth the hassle for me.

I think you are exactly right in that the incentives to get one of the editions greatly decreases for the average collector if they already have the other set. For instance, I would probably not have gotten this set if I had the Folio set for Lord of the Rings and the Hobbit (primarily for high price, the lack of incentives to get a signed limited edition if you already have a recent one and the reduced value proposition to have both). If I was filthy rich, I would of course have gotten both without hesitation. Thank you for the information about the Folio LE slipcase situation. That was new information for me.

Joaozin wrote:

Alan Lee's signature may be common in the anglosphere, but it sure as hell is a rare find down here.

It's my favorite book by my favorite author signed by my favorite artist and with a nice design to top it all off. It also comes with the benefit of not being made out of a dead animal's skin that would most certainly get obliterated in a tropical climate.

I did not even consider the climatic impact on the leather for the Folio edition. That is an important consideration. I also agree with you about the geographical differences in rarity of signed works.

For the average non-veteran collector, I also think that they might not be able to reliably identify the signature of Alan Lee (outside signed limited editions that by definition must have it). If one was not sure if a signature was legitimate, would one dare buy a signed copy on the second-hand market? I would not. Thus, there is a certain emotional and financial comfort in getting an edition like this straight from the publisher.

Dear members,

I think I asked this before already, so excuse me if I repeat myself, but I have no idea anymore when this new edition will be shipped. I see on the website it says ''by 14 November'', which is confusing to me. Does ''by 14 November'' mean that they are going to ship all sold copies in one go on this day, or does ''by 14 November'' mean that they want to have shipped out all sold copies by this day, as a sort of deadline? The formulating of the sentence on the website makes me lean towards the latter, but I'm not sure. I have sent an email about this immediately after placing my order, but Harper Collins never responded to me.

Would love to hear anyone's ideas about this.

Noah wrote:

Dear members,

I think I asked this before already, so excuse me if I repeat myself, but I have no idea anymore when this new edition will be shipped. I see on the website it says ''by 14 November'', which is confusing to me. Does ''by 14 November'' mean that they are going to ship all sold copies in one go on this day, or does ''by 14 November'' mean that they want to have shipped out all sold copies by this day, as a sort of deadline? The formulating of the sentence on the website makes me lean towards the latter, but I'm not sure. I have sent an email about this immediately after placing my order, but Harper Collins never responded to me.

Would love to hear anyone's ideas about this.

When they say by the 14th, it means your purchase will ship on or before that date. They are most likely shipping these out in batches...It is a estimated shipping window.

EmilK wrote:

I completely agree with your assessment that this is a decent to good purchase for people who do not have a signed limited edition, but want a newly produced one with good quality paper and beautiful art that does not require scowering the overpriced second-hand market...
[...]
For the average non-veteran collector, I also think that they might not be able to reliably identify the signature of Alan Lee (outside signed limited editions that by definition must have it). If one was not sure if a signature was legitimate, would one dare buy a signed copy on the second-hand market? I would not. Thus, there is a certain emotional and financial comfort in getting an edition like this straight from the publisher.

As a non-veteran collector who does not have a signed edition, I wholeheartedly agree.

I wouldn't mind pairing this copy of LotR with a signed copy of The Hobbit, and some Googling led me to [url=https://affiliates.abebooks.com/c/97240/77416/2029?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abebooks.co.uk%2Fservlet%2FBookDetailsPL%3Fbi%3D32205840841%5Dthis book, being sold my Analecta Books[/url] but I'm inclined to wait and see if HC follow this release up with a similar signed edition of The Hobbit.

Strider wrote:

As a non-veteran collector who does not have a signed edition, I wholeheartedly agree.

I wouldn't mind pairing this copy of LotR with a signed copy of The Hobbit, and some Googling led me to [url=https://affiliates.abebooks.com/c/97240/77416/2029?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.abebooks.co.uk%2Fservlet%2FBookDetailsPL%3Fbi%3D32205840841%5Dthis book, being sold my Analecta Books[/url] but I'm inclined to wait and see if HC follow this release up with a similar signed edition of The Hobbit.

I think you hit the head on the nail. Now that we have gotten the signed limited edition of Lord of the Rings, it would be very interesting to see if they end up releasing an accompanying edition of the Hobbit. Traditionally, this would typically depend on how well this product sells, but some more cynical (or perhaps realist) collectors might say that HarperCollins likes to put out deluxe editions quite frequently to milk us for money, so I am feeling hopeful (even though it seems that only around ~310 copies of this HC LotR signed LE have sold "recently").

I would be highly interested in a corresponding limited signed edition of the Hobbit, both in its own right (as I do not have a signed limited edition of the Hobbit) and due the "forced" feeling of wanting a complete set and not risk missing out on that. If I recall correctly, the Folio LE Hobbit was cheaper than the Folio LE Lord of the Rings box and the 2025 HC Hobbit was cheaper than the 2024 HC Lord of the Rings box (with the blue spine), so my expectation would be that this would be the case in such a scenario as well.

I'd shell out a decent amount of cash for a Ted Nasmith deluxe illustrated edition...

Noah wrote:

Dear members,

I think I asked this before already, so excuse me if I repeat myself, but I have no idea anymore when this new edition will be shipped. I see on the website it says ''by 14 November'', which is confusing to me. Does ''by 14 November'' mean that they are going to ship all sold copies in one go on this day, or does ''by 14 November'' mean that they want to have shipped out all sold copies by this day, as a sort of deadline? The formulating of the sentence on the website makes me lean towards the latter, but I'm not sure. I have sent an email about this immediately after placing my order, but Harper Collins never responded to me.

Would love to hear anyone's ideas about this.

You did ask this at least twice and people including myself answered as best as we can.

Please, can I ask that you do not keep asking the same question?