Many Thanks for confirming that. Much Appreciated.

11! That's just not fair Beren!

The number on the delivery box matches the number inside on mine too. So I suppose for those who want to keep a copy totally unopened this is pretty useful (particularly if you sell it in the future.)

I got 58 - happy with that. Have to have a closer look at this 'flaky' problem; didn't notice the first time I had a (careful) look.

(From a purely aesthetic bibliographical perspective; not a collecting one) the nice thing is you can handle it (and will be able to if your so inclined); what with it being full leather. Unlike those 1/4 leather black cloth incarnations from a few years back. That cloth (after a good bit of handling) looks too prone to threading & showing grubby marks. At least in 50 years time this edition should still be in sound condition. Although the lettering and helm might not fair so well! Case it a nice touch too.

Anyway, it is nice...

BH

remy you must have got a pretty small number if you ordered in the morning. The times I gave were just when the emails arrived in my inbox. I didn't get to check my mail until that evening. So I didn't order & pay until about 8 o'clock in the eveing of the 19th. In fact the 10 o'clock email from TolkienStore was in my junk folder!

Just had a close (close) look at my copy. There are some tiny areas of blue showing through the gold on the front, but nothing I wouldn't have expected.

Close examination of the leather shows that... well its a piece of leather -and isn't perfect. My copy also looks a bit scuffed around one of the corners on the inside; but its just where the leather has been tooled round and gathered under the glued endpaper.

The gold lettering/design (generally) doesn't look too robust, but has anyone got any books where this kind of workmanship looks like it could be roughly handled (esp. when onto leather)?

For those of you with copies sitting on the otherside of the world in packaging - the choice of returning any damaged copy is also impractical. By the time you guys get to see your copies, HC will probably not have any copies for you to replace it with in any case. I think the poster on the HC forums is just being a little too picky. This is a physically made book after all; it's not meant to be perfect.

Nice!...

Khamul, Well I still have not taken the books out of the shrinkwrap yet, but if the numbers on the Shipping Labels do indeed match the books, then it looks like I got copy number 5 and copy number 6.

So it looks like Harpercollins probably did distribute the books based on the sequence in which they were ordered.

5 and 6! Cool!

My copy arrived today! Number 53 - same as on the label. No defects that I can see.

I ordered at about 6.30pm on the day it was announced. I was SUPPOSED to be on annual leave that day but had to go into work - how annoyed am I now. I could have been rivalling remy and Beren for those really early numbers!

Incidentally, I think that there may be plenty of copies left. I know somebody that didn't order until December 4th and they got copy number 133. Considering that at least 60 copies sold on the first day, they aren't exactly flying off the shelf...

Has anybody tried placing a second order to get around the 2 copies per person rule?

I was a little nervous about the colour, having seen the pictures on ebay, but it is a good dark blue - not quite as dark as the pics at tolkien.co.uk though.

I like the book - it is weighty and feels solid. I would have preferred them to position the ribs on the spine to match the full leather editions issued by A&U in the 80s, but the spine looks good any how - better than the A&U editions in some respects, because the lettering is clearer. The two-colour dragon helm insignia on the upper cover looks wonderful, but I would have preferred the JRRT mongram on the lower cover to be a bit larger and blind stamped - the blind stamping on the 80s A&U editions works really well.

I am less enarmoured of the clamshell case. Not for any reason of quality - It is well constructed and will keep the book in A1 condition - even better than a slipcase - but closing the lid just doesn't FEEL the same as sliding a book into a well-made slipcase. [I just got up to try out the '82 Collector's Silmarillion again - it just GLIDES into the slipcase - that is possibly my absolute favourite book!]

Overall I am very pleased - the new edition is a worthy addition to Tolkien publishing history.

BUT how long will we have to wait for HarperCollins to produce a super deluxe LOTR???

Here's hoping I got a resonably low number too! My order confirmation from worldpay was at 10:33 on the morning of the 19th, so it might be fairly low (twenties would be nice). I just bashed off an email to my fiancee's mum to ask her to have a look for numbers on the address label, so we will see. My second copy is currently sitting in Singapore according to the postal tracking site, but I didn't order that until the following day, so will be somewhere between 60 and 100, I guess.

With regards to ordering more than two copies. I can't see HarperCollins putting up much of a stink, especially as they seem to be (possibly) having trouble shifting them. If money is proferred, I'm sure they will accept it.


Cheers
Stu

PS. Merry not-being-at-work-for-a-few-days to everyone! If you are at work over the 'festive season', you have my commiserations! :)

Metapraxis, You probably got copy number 3 or 4. My order was at 10:39am and I got copies 5 and 6. Good Luck!

Yep, it was number 3!

Stu

w00t! #3 - hard to beat that, since I still hold the opinion that #1 and #2 went to the obvious. Make you wish you had ordered two copies Stu?