The publisher's records at Reading University suggest that there shouldn't be any variation in the 11th impression of RK. It was printed in a single run late in 1964 and bound in batches over the following year and a bit. That said, there is a note that indicates that a couple of advanced copies were marked "10th impression" in error. These were returned to the printer for correction.

The dual A&U/HM imprint was used in the early part of the 1960s to simply the process of HM buying copies of the books from the UK. Prior to that, separate title pages had to be printed which sometimes resulted in errors. It also required books to be "converted" from A&U to HM copies if HM needed stock but A&U weren't ready to reprint - A&U title pages had to be cut out and HM pages pasted in which was an additiona cost and delay.

Thanks Deagol! Now I am going to have to go look at my later impression US 1st editions and see if any of them have tipped in title pages.

Thanks you all :)
have a set from 1965, however ROTK is a 10th but in an 11th jacket, the title page says both A&U and HM, its bothered me for years and its not a mismatched set, you can tell by the aging on the spines that they have always been like this, is it common to get books in the incorrect impression jacket?
DEAGOL.. love your websites.

Thanks

Thanks.

Similar shenanigans went on in the 50s with The Hobbit as well.

Mismatched jackets are not uncommon on both - sometimes due to old stock being used on a new impression and sometimes extra jackets being printed for a new impression to make up for a shortfall on the old impression. In the case of the 10th/11th impression it was due to a price change, so rather than price-clipping or overprinting, they just put the old stock into new jackets.

Deagol wrote:
The publisher's records at Reading University suggest that there shouldn't be any variation in the 11th impression of RK. It was printed in a single run late in 1964 and bound in batches over the following year and a bit. That said, there is a note that indicates that a couple of advanced copies were marked "10th impression" in error. These were returned to the printer for correction.

Thanks Deagol, that makes sense. Anyone have a guess then as to what paulies1066 has/why that exists?

Urulöké wrote:
Now I am going to have to go look at my later impression US 1st editions and see if any of them have tipped in title pages.

I don't know if any RKs had tipped in title pages (let me know if you find one) but some copies of FotR (3rds) and TTT (3rds, 5ths I think) for sure do.

Found one 3rd impression FOTR that has the tipped in page. Good to know!

Do you think it de-values it?

Not at all! Just that there are two states for the third impression, and the cancel/tipped in leaf is one difference.

The known variants of the U.S. edition are listed on my site (www.tolkienbooks.us/lotr/us/hc/hm1954)... at some point I hope to add some sort of basic key for differentiating between the early printings.

I love the American editions, the big red deluxe for me, I own 2, is the best deluxe after the uk bible paper edition from the late 90s.