Fellowship: Question #4 - changing tastes

Stopped buying any new HarperCollins paperbacks a few years ago, did collect all of them for a long time, but now only buy new hardbacks

For me, I had a large focus on US paperbacks (pre-movie) for five years or so, with the thought of documenting them. I picked up every copy of every printing I ran across for quite some time, but then skwishmi built out tolkienguide.us and was working on the same thing so I paused, and when that died down Berelach came out with tolkienbooks.us.... and I have much more limited space for the past few years. So in the last move I gave away/donated a huge number of sets of 60s LotRs, and early Silmarillion paperbacks... and will slowly figure out what to do with many other duplicates in this area. I don't miss it, though!

Can't say that I can really answer this question.

I have never "moved on" from any area of the collection. I don't think I could ever part with any of it (dire financial circumstances excepted).

All I have ever done is add new areas of interest to the collection and focused on improving overall condition by buying better copies and selling the duplicate.

The only items that get moved to the "Back Shelves" are duplicates and some paperback boxsets (for space reasons).

At this moment in time, I cannot see this changing. I am a "Completist" collector through and through....

Books about Tolkien plus 13 vol. NED and long runs of YWES, RES and Medium Aevum are in in boxes in the loft to make room for other interests, along with most of the ephemera.
I am no longer buying new editions of titles I already have unless they include some new material or are presented in a sufficiently interesting new format.
I even sold off a few doubles at Oxonmoot and some Jackson-film ephemera at the Middle Earth Weekend.

My Easton press titles have all gone into boxes. I developed a disdain for "manufactured collectables", which flows over into deluxe editions, generally (although I still enjoy the A&U deluxes and some of the super-deluxe editions, such as CoH). Oddly, although I have it, I'm no big fan of the 1987 Super-deluxe Hobbit, and that gets back shelf treatment. (If I had a matching Sil, that would get front-shelf treatment )

HarperCollins deluxe edition boxed sets, paperbacks (except Unwin sets). Anything that feels tacky and pointless (e.g. the little HarperCollins map books) - all boxed. I'd say about 30% have been packed away, and are unlikely to emerge until my wife has the unenviable task of disposing of the collection.

Post-Unwin, I'm not particularly interested in adding anything extra other than books with original content. I'm hoping that there aren't too many more of those, as not all of Tolkien's work is good/complete enough to have wide publication outside of a scholarly format, *clearly* aimed at such an audience (and I'm sure the Professor would have agreed with this). I expect we still have a few dozen more Tolkien titles to go, though... and I expect I'll keep buying the trade editions.

I'm not a completist, and to be honest - I don't think it is fair on my wife to spend too much money on books. I also try and live an ecologically sound lifestyle (i.e. buy things I need, good quality, and only once), so buying newly printed things for the sake of it feels a bit counter to that goal, and I am genuinely uncomfortable with it.

On the plus side, there are still plenty of older items that I can slowly chip away at to still have the fun of the chase, without adding much to the overall volume or expense (and without feeling I am just buying for the sake of it or am spending money on Chinese-printed chaff).

I enjoy my collection as it sits in my office (and I work from HoME [pun unintended, but retained]), but if it all disappeared, I certainly wouldn't collect it again. My tastes have changed, but it more comes down to the collecting process being much of the fun part for me, and I've already done it once. It wouldn't be fun a second time around.

I love seeing pictures of other people's stuff more than I love owning stuff myself (i.e. the cost of ownership doesn't give me enough extra pleasure above seeing the pictures and descriptions provided by others).

Certainly books about Tolkien; I just don't get through reading enough of it, so no point in buying more & more of it! And, although I didn't focus/collect for that long, paperback boxsets; they're some of the few Tolkien books I've sold on actually.

Paperbacks and U.S. editions. Of Tolkien's fiction I had just about every U.S. edition/first printing and also just about every U.K. paperback edition. I've given these two areas up and am now trying to shape a smaller, focused collection of just the U.K. hardback stuff along with the academic stuff.

I'm like Stu re the deluxe editions. At one stage I had most if not all of them in completes mode but then realised how poor some of them were and I decided (assisted by running out of shelf space) I would sell some. A little painful at first this has helped as I seemed to have finally moved away from 'buy anything that moves' to 'buy quality rare items'.
I also diversified into Pauline Baynes items about 10-15 years ago so the extra funds helped

Though I've occasionally been temped to collect some paperback sets, I've managed to stick primarily with hardbacks. I'm trying to keep my Tolkien books to one Billy bookcase as I have many other book collecting interests. I am spilling over but, like Stu, I'm thinking of purging the EP volumes. I've managed to collect all 29 volumes by or about Tolkien (I'm sure FoG will be coming soon to make 30) which took several years, but I've come to think they're just not that attractive or particularly desirable to me. Many sell well on eBay though!