George_V wrote:

Mine arrived from Booksetc today. Ordered 29 Sept, Dispatched 5 Oct, Arrived 8 October. The packaging is ok, it came in a large wrap-around outer box which may not have been enough on its own, but happily it also had its own cardboard box included as well. Overall I'm satisfied!

This is good to know. My regular hardback arrived from Blackwell's not too well protected and a bit of damage to the edges of the dust jacket. I've been worried about my deluxe edition from Booksetc making it safely to the US.

I have received my copy of the deluxe edition today from agreatread. The packaging was really well done; the book itself is, of course, wonderful!

My reading copy showed up today. Thanks as always go to Amazon UK for a stellar packing job. ?

That's why I refuse to order with them, except as last resort. Sure you may save a few pounds, but is it really the frustration and hassle?

insurrbution wrote:

That's why I refuse to order with them, except as last resort. Sure you may save a few pounds, but is it really the frustration and hassle?

I agree, certainly in the last few years it has deteriorated. I have gift certificate funds to burn through though, so I occasionally get reading copies through Amazon to use up some balance. My keeper copy is coming from elsewhere. With HarperCollins's stellar box construction to protect the deluxe edition, though, the book and slipcase were perfect even though the corners of the publisher's box got dented since the Amazon box was nonexistent.

When I got the three volume Companion & Guide through them, it was completely destroyed in shipment, and they paid for me to mail it back and sent me a new copy. The airmail charge they reimbursed me for was more than the books sold for!

When I returned the Clays HoME deluxe boxed set to Amazon (damaged due to poor packing), return postage was $133.43, which was not far short of the purchase prise of the books. Then they failed to pay the customs fees (as I understand it), so the books were returned back to me in NZ (I got fully refunded as I had the tracking proving it was returned to them). So much waste, purely because they couldn't use basic common sense when packing.

Mind you, I was glad they did get damaged in transit, because that set was an absolute pile of crap. At 280 (IIRC) copies, proof that just because something is uncommon, it doesn't mean it is worth having.

Goldsboro: "We’ll be fulfilling all orders within a week or two. Please bear with us, we have a backlog of orders to process and ship."...

Talking Tolkien Youtube review of the Deluxe hardback

Video has been removed, hopefully will be reposted.

Trotter wrote:

Talking Tolkien Youtube review of the Deluxe hardback

This does not work for me. It says the video is private.

Sorry about that, but thanks for posting Trotter. For some unknown reason the audio has come out really poor on the video, so I will try to re-film it over the weekend.