Trotter wrote:
The map looks very good, the picture does show the issue that I pointed out about the cloth binding. You can see part of the mountains on the top right of the picture, this does not appear on the 1st Impression.

Yes, it is pretty obvious from the inside.

Have loaded up the other map as well (in previous post) -- accidentally missed uploading it first time around.

The map in the back has some differences, to the 1st Impression.

Yes, they seem to have chopped the over-runs from the corners.

My copy arrived about one hour ago, so here are some pictures of it with its older cousin

The second picture is the HarperCollins facsimile dustjacket at the top and Facsimile Dust Jackets LLC version at the bottom.

The blank page removed from the beginning of the book, is at the end of the book after the adverts.

The 1st Impression does not have a blank page at the end of the book, I think this was a mistake by HarperCollins, who put it at the end of the book and not the beginning.

It would have been nice for the cloth binding to be a light-green and not turquoise/teal colour. It looks to be the same colour as some of the early US Hobbits.

From the pictures, it looks like your 1st/1st is dangerously close to falling down into a bucket of water, Trotter!

It does not go anywhere near buckets of water, I assume you mean the blue item at the side, that is an empty waste bin

Thanks for the pictures! It seems the red of the maps is appreciably darker than in the original. Oh well! Overall a very nice edition.

I wonder if the colour difference is down to the (genuine) books sometimes fading (or at least appearing to based on photos I have seen, such as this one from TolkienLibrary). You can see where the green has changed to a grey/blue.

My copy shipped! I actually got on a chat session with Amazon because it was in shipping status so long, and because of the delayed release (that's an understatement at this point, obviously!) they upgraded my shipping to the fastest available option for free. So, it looks like it's going to be delivered Tuesday, just after I leave for New Zealand. Since it's UPS, though, I might be able to intercept it Monday night. Would be great to have with me on the long flight.

Amazon U.K.?