You're absolutely right, and I've edited accordingly.

There's a couple of problems here with your argument bruffyboy!

First of all, I don't agree with any of your examples of 'value' or 'price'. I do recognise them, but I also recognise that just because something is listed for £1000, doesn't mean someone will buy it; and if someone does buy it, it doesn't mean it's worth that. (Reputable 'Tolkien' dealer or not.)

The £414 Silmarillion is, at present (& I'm willing to be proved very wrong here), an untypical price. If you read my post on recent prices --there is no precedence for this high a price. Secondly, what collector valued the piece at £400+? No collector. The Tolkien Bookshelf (a book dealer) bought this copy. It now sits on AbeBooks for $1250. Will someone now pay $1250 for it? I don't care. It's not worth this much. There are Tolkien books on Abebooks that have been listed since I opened my eBay account in 2003; they are overpriced & nobody has been willing to pay the amount they are listed for. (Incidentally, copies of The Silmarillion can be picked up, with ease, for less than £10.)

But there are other contradictory points I could make. You are very right about the rarity of the GA&U signed Silmarillions. But people tend to keep & look after £350 deluxe signed books a little better. I'd be very surprised if anyone had a signed deluxe CoH in any condition other than fine for the next decade; and even more surprised if there weren't still 500 in existence too. They're not just going to disappear. 1977 signed Silmarillions won't disappear either --but they can, by the careless, be overlooked & mistaken for any other 1977 copy amongst ten’s, if not hundreds, of thousands of copies. This ain't going to happen with a deluxe CoH i.e. it's rarity will not change over the next decade.

Btw, I agree with Garm. Bit more tact in regard to CT. The guys alive & kicking --he even has a book out in November!

BH

Christopher Tolkien is a human being; same as the rest of us. He's also a nice bloke, and the idea of people waiting for his death in order to see the price of their possessions go up in value frankly makes me feel a little sick. Personally, I'd like to see a cap on this sort of thing.

I entirely agree, I'd like to see Christopher Tolkien around for as long as possible, Tolkien fans and collectors owe a huge debt to Christopher (e.g. 12 volumes of The History of Middle-Earth, a huge achievement), I know that like most collectors on this forum, I will be very upset when Christopher is no longer with us, certainly not celebrating that my books have gone up in value.

But there are other contradictory points I could make. You are very right about the rarity of the GA&U signed Silmarillions. But people tend to keep & look after £350 deluxe signed books a little better. I'd be very surprised if anyone had a signed deluxe CoH in any condition other than fine for the next decade; and even more surprised if there weren't still 500 in existence too. They're not just going to disappear. 1977 signed Silmarillions won't disappear either --but they can, by the careless, be overlooked & mistaken for any other 1977 copy amongst ten’s, if not hundreds, of thousands of copies. This ain't going to happen with a deluxe CoH i.e. it's rarity will not change over the next decade.

I think you've hit the nail on the head here, and this is the point I was missing! Kind of tempts me to open my CoH and treat it carefully but at least have a good look at it!

I would like to think the rise in Silmarillion price (and I know from another thread it was a massive hike on previous prices), could be linked to the drying of of CT signatures - based purely on the fact that CT no longer does book tours or signings, his sig is getting rarer. Obviously at least two people thought it was worth that much.

I guess I can only really talk from my own experience, and I know I would pay, for example, £350, for the 1992 deluxe's mentioned. I am guessing they originally cost around half that? So a doubling of original purchase price just does not seem crazy to me for a nice book that is in good condition and has sold out everywhere else.

I think you should open it, I really like my opened copy and think out of the four Super Deluxe editions I own it is one of the best (though not the best).

So come on Trotter - which IS the best Super Deluxe you own?

I think you will get a general agreement on this, the 1982 Super Deluxe Silmarillion, ideally signed, my copy is not signed, as an aside it is possible to have signed copies by Christopher Tolkien of all four Super Deluxe books(The Silmarillion, The Hobbit, Children of Húrin and The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrún).

Ha! Just as I am coming round to everyone's ideas, here is a book now worth £2000 approx? OK, I get the stuff about how limited it was (read the post on this forum from a year or so back), but still, how can anyone say CoH would not double in value in ten years, when you look at the Silmarillion Super Deluxe! BTW, a lovely looking book!

I think ultimately, as someone once said on this forum(?), a book is only worth how much someone is willing to pay for it.

I am a pretty avid Tolkien book collector myself, but I don't own any of the Super-deluxe editions, though may eventually in the future. Personally (with no offense to other collectors on this forum), if I'm going to spend that kind of money on a Tolkien book, I'd rather spend it on a book that was published in Tolkien's lifetime (1st/1st). That is not to say you shouldn't buy those books or they are not worth collecting.

In addition, I think as collectors we should not always (not that it is bad) focus purely on monetary value. For me, both the quality of an item and its rarity make it equally desirable, though not necessarily valuable. For example, I have a near fine copy of the American edition of SoWM; probably not worth a ton but it is both hard to come by (in this quality) and of superior quality.

Also, for me, one of the funnest parts of collecting is finding the deal. I know all of you have found those deals before, and would love to hear about your finds.

I knew a bookseller that once found a first edition, first printing of The Hobbit (American edition) with the dust jacket in very nice condition at a thrift store in the 1980s for something like a dollar. Now that's a deal.

I have to agree with Jlong here. I don't think anyone should pay four figures (£ that is) for any post mortem book relating to Tolkien --why not just go out and buy a few genuine early impression of, for example, LotRs?

(Bruffyboy) CT never did any 'signings' (not really), and his signature can't possibly be getting rarer! Where are they going? If you mean it's harder to get a recent signature, then that too would be untrue --there are more CT signatures kicking about from recent times than ever: CoH launch bookplates, CoH Super Deluxe, S&G Super Deluxe --there's approx 1900 for you. His signature is not uncommon, and isn't going to become so I don't think.

Also, if you want to compare prices, you have to think about what, say, £100 was actually worth back in 1982 i.e. the price for the 1982 signed copies of the deluxe Silmarillion --inflation and all that. What would £100 of early 1980's UK money be equivalent to now? I'm not going to guess, but I would suggest many hundreds. That said, it sounds like the most elegant, well made of the Super Deluxe editions...

BH