What was the first copy of the Hobbit, LOTR and the Sil that you owned?

THE HOBBIT, Grafton, 1991, Pb, 6th imp.
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=24200
THE LORD OF THE RINGS, HarperCollins, 1993, Pb, 1st imp.
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=46280
THE SILMARILLION, HarperCollins, 1994, Pb 1st imp.
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=62280

I still have all of these & use them as reading copies. I read LotRs, for the first time in many years, in early-to-mid 2013 (I think); and The Silmarillion in June this year. I may have read The Hobbit around this time, too; but can't recall exactly. LotRs is nearly falling apart; the other two are okay. I also have an additional duplicate collectable copy (no spine fade) of The Silmarillion; also a 1st imp. I'd read The Hobbit previous to my acquisition of the above 1991/92 Grafton copy (I first read it in primary school, several years earlier); but the other two editions are contemporary with my first reading of them.

BH

The Hobbit:
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=21350

The Lord of the Rings:
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=41900
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=41910
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=41920

The Silmarillion:
http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=62180

I received TH as a Christmas present in 1973, when I was 7; and bought LotR and QS in 1980. I still have these copies of TH and LotR, but I lost QS a few years ago

- wellinghall

Owned myself, was a set of the fiftieth anniversary Lord of the Rings/Hobbit paperbacks in the US (and I still cringe at the artwork...) I only post a sample of one of the book covers below to spare the faint of heart.

I was offered the original Michael Herring artwork once at reasonable prices, but didn't have to think too hard before declining.

My parents had first US edition hardcovers that I read and re-read many times growing up, those are still in the family collection but unfortunately I was not kind to the dustjackets. Not first impressions thankfully.

I have no idea which version of The Silmarillion was my first, but it was a US paperback from the 80s. I doubt I still have that particular copy (as I run across so many, I have taken to only keeping the best condition copies of each edition).

Growing up in the US has made my early collecting stories rather boring and uneventful, I am afraid. Only when I had the budget to shop online did anything truly noteworthy join the collection.

If we ever do a thread on what are the worst covers of the Lord of the Rings?

Then the Michael Herring editions must rank quite highly.

As a collector, who has a strict rule of only collecting UK editions of Tolkien's books, I now have quite a few US editions :)

I can't bring myself to buy this set though.

Trotter wrote:
As a collector, who has a strict rule of only collecting UK editions of Tolkien's books, I now have quite a few US editions :)

Does this mean, that now you have essentially collected everything, you still have the collecting bug? :)

These ones, plus the smaller-format BCA Hardback Sil. (that looks like the GA&U one, but with red boards and smaller).

These remain my favourite paperbacks, and I don't think they have been bested or are likely to be, as artwork tastes have changed, I think.

For The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings: the Ballantine paperbacks with Barbara Remington covers. This was in 1970.

For The Silmarillion, the Houghton Mifflin first edition, bought on publication in 1977.

Wayne