Oops! Should have looked a little closer. My apologies, is the revised 5th.

That was the shortest survey I have ever taken lol. I'd like to add there are 2 cover variations that I am aware of for 65 5th printing Ballantine Lion Hobbits. The spine lettering for The Hobbit is blue on the majority of releases but green on a smaller number. Substantially smaller.

BillThePony wrote:

That was the shortest survey I have ever taken lol. I'd like to add there are 2 cover variations that I am aware of for 65 5th printing Ballantine Lion Hobbits. The spine lettering for The Hobbit is blue on the majority of releases but green on a smaller number. Substantially smaller.

The blue fades to green when exposed to sunlight over time, so that might be what you have seen.

Urulókë wrote:

BillThePony wrote:

That was the shortest survey I have ever taken lol. I'd like to add there are 2 cover variations that I am aware of for 65 5th printing Ballantine Lion Hobbits. The spine lettering for The Hobbit is blue on the majority of releases but green on a smaller number. Substantially smaller.

The blue fades to green when exposed to sunlight over time, so that might be what you have seen.

Yes, and I will add that Ballantine used pretty cheap ink for these, so they fade pretty easily

I do not believe that is the case. Spine coloring is largely consistent and is a spot on match for the same green used on the front. Sorry pics loaded upside down. I haven't hosted to a forum in hot minute. So.... Top and top left.

I'll take additional shots from any angle you may like. I may be wrong but that looks like clean ink to me.

Full disclaimer I own 11 5th impressions and 2 are like this. One is beat and the one pictured is the nice one.

Here. These are better.

Thanks! Certainly doesn't look like fading, I agree.

I checked my first impression, it is the green color for "The Hobbit" on the spine and front cover, with the Ballantine information (logo, code) in blue. I'm guessing that at some point (maybe at the fifth impression of the 1965 edition) they decided to use the "Ballantine blue" for the title on the spine as well. Hammond's Bibliography confirms the green title on spine and front cover for the first impression is correct.

The blue "The Hobbit" is just on the spine, correct? Your picture of the front covers looks like all are green.

That's correct sir. Spines are green until 4th and what I believe was the transition into the more common Ballantine Blue color found on most 5ths.

This has all been speculation on my part just using Occam's Razor on available supply at the printers. It follows good logic though. I'm confident the minority of spines are green but I'd want to examine a larger sample size than mine to see exactly how much rarer they are. Which; isn't easy because people aren't sitting on stacks of them typically for me to rifle through lol.

About every 5th 5th impression I find is like that so I'm saying 20% of the total 5th run but again that's wildly speculative because of such a small sample size.

So just to add additional data points…

I have three 5th printings of the Ballantine Lion Hobbit of which two spines have blue lettering and one spine has green letters. See first two images.

Then just to throw out something interesting, I have a number of revised Ballantine 1966 Hobbits which are a 1st, 2nd, 9th, 10th, 12th and 17th printings that has blue lettering only on the spine of the 10th printing (all have blue lettering on the the cover). See next three images.

And to be complete, I have about thirty - forty 1st printing Lion Hobbits and all are consistent with green lettering on the spines and covers. Final image.

Excellent collection LF! I enjoyed your appearance on YT showcasing your books. It was like looking in a mirror in many ways. Both of our collections are cut from the same yard of cloth, so to speak.

I was hoping you'd chime in on the green spine 5th impression variation. Adds a little spice to setting a run of Lion covers.