I thought it worth sharing my example - anyone else willing?

Urulókë wrote:
I thought it worth sharing my example - anyone else willing?

Yeah, I'll post mine up when there isn't a baby sleeping in the same room as the book! The level of misalignment on mine is about the same, albeit for the slightly different reason.

There we go..

Too many variables. How the faux-stamp is cut, the positioning of the ink on the red paper, the positioning of the blind stamp on the red paper and the positioning of the faux-stamp on the paper.

Was probably never going to work, except where luck happened to come together for a particular copy.

I don't have much luck with slipcases in general so mine was never going to be centered.

This is something the Talking Tolkien review/unboxing video addresses.

Funny to think that "standard" editions are better made than "deluxe", higher-end ones.

insurrbution wrote:
This is something the Talking Tolkien review/unboxing video addresses.

Funny to think that "standard" editions are better made than "deluxe", higher-end ones.

I'm going to take HarperCollins side on this, these are stamps that were printed in sheets, perforated, gummed or glued (not sure on that, might ask HC) and then stuck on by hand, on the boxes, 4000 of them.

For them to be perfectly centered they would have to have printed the stamp on the slipcase, and not produced them with a hand affixed stamp, I like the approach they took

Very good point. I was speaking generally since the deluxe Kullervo, and a few other deluxe edition hiccups.

Trotter wrote:

I'm going to take HarperCollins side on this, these are stamps that were printed in sheets, perforated, gummed or glued (not sure on that, might ask HC) and then stuck on by hand, on the boxes, 4000 of them.

For them to be perfectly centered they would have to have printed the stamp on the slipcase, and not produced them with a hand affixed stamp, I like the approach they took

I didn't mean to imply that I am unhappy with my FCL deluxe, I still think it is one of the best they have produced in recent years. Just documenting the variations in the process - and I agree, the "hand assembled" feel is a nice touch.

I do scratch my head a bit that they put the cancel/frank on the book before they put the stamp on, and already have the cancel/frank pre-printed on the stamp - pretty much guaranteeing the two don't align with each other. It would seem like if they just did it the way the post office does (put the stamp on first, then cancel/frank the book and the stamp together) would avoid the alignment issue.

[Edit to add] In all seriousness, I assume the book cover is manufactured by machine with the cancel/frank printed on the board and a machine doing the blind stamp - thus variations in the positioning between the two. The stamp itself might be hand applied or by machine, too. If they hand canceled the stamps (or built a machine to do it), that would add a fairly expensive extra step to the manufacturing process, so I completely understand why it is the way it is.

On the flip side, they just created a "holy grail" collector's item - the very small handful of copies that actually align.

Given my prior experience from other collector communities (toys with variants, philately with certain franks/cancels being prized for being clearly legible or from the right city/date/time) I am not being (very) sarcastic here. Someone will be willing to pay extra money to get a copy that is properly aligned. ?