Pauline Baynes Tolkien Tea Towel

I was recently asked for a price for this, they are very rare items.

You could expect to get between £200-£300 for one.

The Pauline Baynes poster and paper maps remain desirable and those are much more common than these, I would agree with Trotter on value and wouldn't be surprised if it got more than that.

A few of these were made as a trial for a possible line of merchandise, but they were not approved for full scale production.

One was offered for sale many years ago (by Daeron's Books I think).

It is one of those things that could be worth £50 or £500, depending on who is looking for something unusual at the time.

Hi Trotter, Deagol and Mr Underhill, many thanks for your thoughts and information, it has helped me a lot.

I was recently asked by a bookseller about the history of the towel, and scoured our files for information. Pauline Baynes once stated in an interview that she made the 'There and Back Again' design originally for a tea towel, but it's clear from her correspondence with Allen & Unwin (in the Baynes archive at Williams College) that the poster came first, as a follow-up to her Map of Middle-earth. The new project was suggested to her by Rayner Unwin in September 1970; Pauline was too busy to accept at once, and could not begin work on the map in earnest until late July 1971, completing the art in September. Copyright was conveyed to the publisher, though Pauline retained ownership of the original art. The 1971 date printed on the towel refers to the copyright, not to the date of production by Jonelle or the date of sale. The towels were printed probably in 1972, in advance of first sale in late January 1973. We have a photocopy of a press release to be issued on 22 January 1973, by the U.K. department store chain John Lewis and Company who evidently had an exclusive right. This reads:

There and Back again . . . Readers of J R Tolkien's book 'The Hobbit' and its sequel, 'The Lord of the Rings' will now be able to follow the journey of the lovable Bilbo Baggins on our new Jonelle tea towel. Printed in bright clear colours on 100% Irish linen, the Hobbit tea towel shows the places Bilbo visited on his travels from his Hobbit hole in the Shire, through Rivendell and Mirkwood to the Lonely Mountain at Dale, illustrating some of the memorable incidents which occurred on the way. This interesting tea towel measures 20" x 30" and is available now at all branches of the John Lewis Partnership price 39p.

There is no 1970s mention of the towel in Pauline's correspondence, and none in any of the Allen & Unwin correspondence we've read.

Christina and I bought one of the towels from a dealer many years ago, and carefully pressed out the folds.

Wayne