Deagol,

What was in the letter?

Dior

Something along the lines of: Dear Bookseller, thank you for your order for The Silmarillion, here is a dummy copy to help you get more.

Hello Dummy Silmarillions fans

I just received my copy this morning, and here are the details as far as I can notice :

Printer: Clowes
Binding: Cloth
Dust jacket: unpriced, identical to my regular Clowes "Export" copy
Printed: up to page 32
Publisher's imprint: London/George Allen & Unwin Ltd/Boston Sydney.
ISBN: 0048231398
Chapters: 24

I have noticed that the blue and white striped headband is differrent between the regular Clowes and the Dummy. The top edge colour is more greyish on the Dummy.
Here are some pictures. (Dummy is having the greyish top edge).
The last pictures are from my Billing copy signed by Christopher Tolkien, just for the pleasure...

Those of you who own this Dummy copy of the Silmarillion, do you have also a slight different strip headband, compared to the export edition?

Khamûl : May I ask you if your headband is different from the regular Export Edition, like mine?
Im' just too curious... :)

Sorry, I intended to reply sooner, but didn't want to post until I had something to actually say! ;)

I looked at my (only) Dummy S last night & the headband was the same as all the other Clowes (first state) copies that I have. I admit I didn't look really closely, but there was no further white within the blue as with your Dummy. I'm struggling to see, tbh, if your Dummy has a distinctly different headband (which doesn't really surprise me) or whether the white within the blue stripe it actually just the underlying white showing through due to age/wear/fault. Other than the one stray fully blue stripe on one side that pattern does look very consistent though. Headband wear seems pretty unlikely, so best guess is it's a different headband. As with all these S variations I assume it's of no importance, but interesting nonetheless...

Thanks for your feedback Khamûl :)

Yes I know what your mean. There is only one stripe in one side which is fully blue.
The other stripes are consistently white within the blue. The book itself is in pretty nice shape, and the upper text block doesn't seem to be more dusty than usual (if not at all, other than being greyish, instead of the deeper blue of the Export edition.)