Stu wrote:

Trotter wrote:
If you are looking for a Fall of Arthur Deluxe, then this edition is worth avoiding, printed in China by RR Donnelley the 2nd Impression, hopefully, spine issues will be fixed in the 3rd impression.

Do we know if this is really the 2nd impression or actually the 3rd (but marked as 2nd)? The first reprints have fairly consistently been incorrectly stated as "1".

Very hard to tell, but I think this title is probably now a 2nd impression, and has not been reprinted without resetting the impression number.

Would love to know if I am wrong on this?

I recently bought the HC deluxe Fall of Arthur, Beren & Luthien, and Sir Gawain. I'm just amazed at how little the gold lettering on the spines line up with the rest of my editions.

Arthur is a 2nd Printing
Beren & Luthien is a 3rd Printing
Sir Gawain is a 1st Printing and it lines up perfectly with the rest

I just don't understand it

And another thing...I bought the LOTR deluxe new about 8 months ago and it's a 13th printing. Seems like at this point HC should take off the "For a limited time" on the packaging.

Is HC ever going to stop print runs of the deluxe editions?

Mr. Underhill wrote:

Is HC ever going to stop print runs of the deluxe editions?

I believe the Chinese printers allow them to reprint economically with smaller runs, so I suspect the answer is "Whilst people keep buying them, they will keep printing them".

I would expect a change would occur when there is a new product needed to boost volumes.

Not to get too political, but to offer food for thought, after this covid problem, maybe China won't be used for printing things anymore. I mean, look where the collector's editions of Sir Gawain (I forget where that one was made) and the new illustrated Unfinished Tales were printed.

insurrbution wrote:

Not to get too political, but to offer food for thought, after this covid problem, maybe China won't be used for printing things anymore. I mean, look where the collector's editions of Sir Gawain (I forget where that one was made) and the new illustrated Unfinished Tales were printed.

Think it's more HC learned their lesson that the First run needs to be somewhere in Europe from a more reputable printer.
After that they can let China handle printing the later impressions.

For what it's worth, I wanted to mention that I have a few Tolkien books printed in China, and judging from the print job itself, you wouldn't have known. I do understand that there's been issues and mistakes made from Chinese printers lately - from about 2015 - present, with certain titles.

I could keep going on, though I don't want this post to get too rambly. I'll end by saying that just because a book is (re)printed there, doesn't automatically make for a brand printing....though the likelyhood of it being one is increased.