I think my main takeway is that I'll never own a book signed by Tolkien , although honestly that's not such a big deal. I would rather have a copy he owned, but that's even harder.

The market is extremely hot right now, definitely. Whether that's "permanent" or a temporary bubble remains to be seen, but I think it won't cool off until at least after the Amazon show influence wanes, at the very least.

The Hobbit price surprised me as well - evidently just being a Hobbit changed people's minds quite a bit, as other signed books in this auction didn't have a $13,000 boost in price just for being signed.

I think the lesser signed works ended about where I expected (Bombadil, FGoH, Tree and Leaf).

the Sir Gawain (unsigned) price seems extraordinarily high to me, but maybe I haven't been paying attention. The dustjacket is clearly most of the value, but I still thought that would land around $1000 or maybe $2000. It more than doubled my high guess.

The US signed Lord of the Rings set also doubled my personal guess. The condition of the books/dustjackets primarily was my guide, but I guess the scarcity of US signed editions won over in people's minds. I wouldn't be surprised to see these get "sophisticated" (a dealer taking the signed books and combining with nicer dustjackets from another set).

What did the 'essays' go for?

northman wrote:

What did the 'essays' go for?

Sold including Buyer's Premium : $562.50

Thank you, Uruloke…excellent feedback.