insurrbution wrote:

I personally (and this could be wrong) consider a Tolkien collector to be someone that has at least two editions of the same title. Even if that title is the only one you have multiples of.

For instance, I've got Ken Follett's Century Trilogy....but, by owning them, does that make me a collector? I wouldn't say so.

That's just how I see it, but might be wrong!

That's defining it in a very narrow way. There are many other ways to identify as a "collector" besides having mult. editions of a title. Mult. copies of a title, mult. variants of a title, all titles from one author, etc...

Khamûl wrote:

If you start buying books for any reason other than reading, then I think you're basically collecting.

I agree that this is a sufficient condition for collecting, but I don't think it's a necessary one. My first (and still foremost if not only) aim in collecting was to acquire (i.e., collect) in physical printed form everything that Tolkien had ever written, for the purpose of reading it (or, at least, having it conveniently available to read, as I prefer not to read for leisure from a pdf or digital archive). For an author/scholar like Tolkien that alone is enough of a collecting goal to keep one occupied indefinitely.

Stu wrote:

A collector is someone who acquires books (in this case) and then doesn't get rid of them.

This seems like an adequate definition to me, provided that they are books centering on a particular topic, and provided that we can understand the word "books" to include printed/recorded material other than books (magazines, journals, published works of art, audiobooks, and digital equivalents of these things, such as ebooks, online journals, and so on).

I would add one further criterion to the definition, though: The accumulation of the books has to be for pleasure rather than business. As a scholar and researcher I have amassed hundreds of books on particular topics but would never call myself a "collector" of these books. This is true even though many are not for the purpose of reading, per se, but for reference or for teaching.

onthetrail wrote:

I am primarily a text hunter.

This sounds like a great way to collect. Somehow i think the Professor would have approved ?

I got started when I bought my second copy of the LOTR. I started reading Tolkien as a young boy in 1979. Within a few years I had bought and read all his fictional work (which wasn’t much then) and a few secondary books such as Fosters Guide and Carpenter’s biography. But I was a reader rather than a collector. It was in about 1983 when I bought my second copy of LOTR, the Allen and Unwin India paper de luxe. I think it’s at the point where you buy second copies of books that you become a collector - if you’re a reader you only need one copy of a book. Of course my collecting developed slowly and in fits and starts - but that was the launch point.

I read the LotR in the late 80's and it just touched me deeply. Been in love with Middle-earth since then. Moreover it awoke in me a love for myths and legends in general from nordic myths, to the kalevala, to the bible etc etc. Slowly but surely i bought all middle-earth related i could get my hands on, not to collect, but to read.

I've only defined myself as a collector very recently. I started reading the LotR and the Sil for my youngest daughter and my Tolkien-interest that had been a bit dormant got a real reboot. One day i caught myself wanting a beautiful set of paperbacks to remind me of the first time i read LotR and i understood i had become a collector for real. Several projects are underway and i see no end in sight:

- early/first editions of tolkiens writings... the early hobbits/sil/unfinished tales in particular are beautiful in my opinion.
- biographies and referenceworks
- the HC slipcase deluxe series
- the easton press publications

I also have started collecting some artwork. I do love Ted Nasmiths artwork in particular.

The first contact with Tolkien, I think it was in 1981, after seeing the cartoon film in the cinema, when he was only 5 years old.
Soon my parents bought me the book of the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings. And with them I began to fall in love with Tolkien and to become interested in other authors of fantasy literature.
After buying almost everything published in spanish, which is little. I started buying Dragonlance books, Forgotten Realms, a Guy Gavriel Kay book, ...
Recently and after starting to introduce my children to the wonderful world of Tolkien, I discovered that a few more books had been published in Spanish, which I bought, as well as the first Spanish editions. I have also started collecting English editions and some early editions of the Lord of the Rings, Tom Bombadil, Silmarillion and Smith of Wootton Major.
My goals to finish collecting the first English editions of the Lord of the Rings (I am missing the Two Towers) and some old edition of the Hobbit and above all to have a signed Tolkien book.