Just had a look - yup; mine's priced. Cost me £25.00, back in the day.

Khamul wrote:
There is just no sensible justification for PoME going for £250+ & MR (now) trading at comfortably under £100 --although I've no doubt it will sell for this kind of price, prices have been dropping for PoME and WotR in recent times. The pulping story is a myth; David Brawn has confirmed this. Your observation about there being more unpriced copies is what I've seen too. Priced copies are definitely less common (--on eBay at least). I don't have either PoME or WotJ, so this is why I'm so narked at these high prices! (--they've got to keep dropping...)

BH

P.S. I intend holding out for a copy for under £200. Quite a few have gone for less in recent auctions.

I think I paid about GBP 190-ish (based on the exchange rate at the time) for my priced copy last year (and I've had the unpriced one for years). I can't see value in these books much above that. Prices seem to be dropping and availability is increasing all the time. The only question is whether the Hobbit movie will drive prices up across the board like last time, I guess.

PoME isn't really rare (the print run being only very marginally less than WoTJ), and I'm not even sure that there are actually less priced copies than unpriced, based on the evidence (2525 copies for the trade + 1565 for the BCA). I guess it would depend on whether some of the trade copies were unpriced for export to Canada/Australia?

Indeed. Point is these prices are inflated; your £190 seems about right. It's the same with many titles. I was on ABE just there looking at Methuen copies of The Silmarillion. There are about half a dozen on there --three or four of them have been there for years. To me (baring in mind these are genuinely quite rare [sub 200 no doubt]) this suggests these are over-priced; or put more clearly --there are not enough buyers who think these prices are value for money. So, we don't buy, & they don't sell --& they list for years. Totally pointless.

BH

Indeed GBP 190 is indeed a good price (considering what copies are going for), but i ran into a seller recently who had a a copy he was willing to sell for GBP 230. The question i ask myself is what is 40 pounds when you're already at almost 200. This copy was unpriced so i thought he was asking too much, i understand the principle of it not being a rare book but people are paying rare book prices, which is what more or less sets the value of something. I kindof wonder if Stu's right, that there are not less priced copies, but that would mean that the collectors are holding on to the priced copies...especially the last 4 HoME books.
The book i listed on this site ends in a couple days and has some competative bidding going on, so i'll be interested to see what it ends at. Really it brings me back to my original question, what's the intact price going to do to it's "value".
Good luck to you Brian on finding a copy for an affordable price! I had some good luck recently and found a decent copy of WotJ that i won for 16 Euros on ebay.de. I was very pleased with this because i would not pay $200 for WotJ, and i've been seeing it go for more than that lately.
It truly is all about patience, knowing what you want to buy and saving up for it (or buying the book when it comes out, right garm )

Another £40? It's just that --another £40, down the pan, when you could be buying a nice early set of LotRs, etc. The print run for this was over 4000. Just read that: 4000. All those unpriced copies kicking around: these are some of the 1500 that went to BCA. Although they went on to sell (presumably priced) another 500 or so --there were still 2000 trade editions. The idea that this title is rare or scarce or uncommon is plainly false. That a book that cost £25 at the time is now worth ten times this, is inflated pricing. MR used to be super expensive --it isn't now. The same can happen to WotJs & PoME. I'll wait. I don't feel any inclination to splash out £200+. With the new HarperCollins POD titles too --it makes no sense for prices to go up. If anything they should go down. But, if you want to spend £240, fair enough.

BH

I don't disagree at all, another 40 pounds isn't pocket change. My point was, when you've decided to spend $20 on something you wouldn't hesitate to spend $24. For the past few years people have been willing to spend big money on this title, the test of time i suppose will show if PoME and WotJ stays at these prices, and the only thing that sets them apart from the rest of the set is that there was no second printing.

I didn't intend to imply you thought it was worth this much, or that you disagreed with me. I just think collectors (everyone) have to put these things into perspective. It's not worth £250. If people stopped paying these prices, then perhaps prices would drop to more sensible levels. I just find it unbelievable, sometimes, that we pay this much for a book published in 1996, yet lovely Tolkien 1st edition sets from the 50's & 60's can (still) be got for the same price.

BH

Nice collection of essays that doesn't pop up much on eBay:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Proceedings-o ... ain_0&hash=item4d0307466b

Yes -- I had been looking for the Proceedings for a long time, but last week I found a used copy on Amazon.uk, cheaper than the Ebay one above, + it included a whole bunch of old Amon Hen and Mallorn issues!

Parts of those Proceedings are incredibly well proof-read, if I do say so myself ...

- wellinghall