northman wrote:

remy wrote:

Emilien wrote:

northman : I love this icelandish edition. Is this the 1st thus in this country?

Was going to ask same question. Is this the 93-95 1st Edition or the early 2000's (2001,2002?) Edition?

Are there any differences between the two printings? Was the First Printing issued in a Slipcase or just the Second?

The first 2 volumes are from the first printing (93-94) while the RotK is from the second printing (2001-2002). The first printing came with dustjackets...the second printing was a boxed set with a hardboard cover emulating the dustjackets from the first printing. As you can see from the pictures even though i have a mixed set they look quite nice together.

Ahhh! I think I see it now. From your Photos: - Vols 1 & 2 are in Dustjackets and Vol 3 is Printed Board - Is that correct?

Originally I thought all three were Printed boards. You would barely notice in your photo. They look a perfect match!

northman wrote:

The end of a hunt that lasted many years. Even roamed stores in Reykjavik on a holliday trip, and made an offer for a set belonging to the parents of an icelander living in my neighbourhood here.

Congratulations, northman !! It took me several years to find a set and when I did it was just pure luck--I happened to look at bland.is during the precise week that an individual in Reykjavik was selling a number of copies. They were there and then gone just as quickly as they appeared. The page for Hringadróttinssaga on my website is always one of the top three for visits (it was number one for a long time, but since the recent coup in Sri Lanka it has been supplanted by the page for the Sinhala translation--මුදු වල අධිපතියා). Mine didn't come with either dust jackets or the slipcase so they're probably the later printing.

At some point in my own search, I seem to recall a paperback Hringadróttinssaga edition with black covers and rings on them being advertised somewhere. I only saw them once or twice and never again. Do you know anything about these or were they just someone's pipe dream?

remy wrote:

Ahhh! I think I see it now. From your Photos: - Vols 1 & 2 are in Dustjackets and Vol 3 is Printed Board - Is that correct?

Exactly so

Taivo: dont know about any paperbacks sorry, but love your site!

northman wrote:

Taivo: dont know about any paperbacks sorry, but love your site!

I only saw them once or twice, probably on bland.is (about the time I bought my hardback set, in 2019).
I actually wrote my previous post from the office and I assumed that all three of my volumes were minus the dustjackets. But I just checked them at home and was quite surprised to discover that Return of the King has a dustjacket on it and is from the first printing. Those dustjackets fit so tightly and the second printing replicates the look and feel of the first printing so perfectly that I had simply never noticed that there was a dustjacket on Return. Wow! (I'm glad you like my website. Thank you)

(It sounds like between us we have one full set from the first printing and one full set from the second printing, LOL. I wonder if in their histories they were at the same place at the same time and got mixed.)

So does the 1st Printing also have printed boards? Or are they plain?

remy wrote:

So does the 1st Printing also have printed boards? Or are they plain?

Plain. I will take a picture when i get home from work.

For anyone interested. This is what the 2nd Printing Slipcase looks like:

That slipcase for the second printing of Hringadróttinssaga is quite nice, but it's interesting that the covers/dustjackets of the three books contain original Icelandic art as well as two of the sides of the slipcase, yet the back of the slipcase has a familiar painting from Alan Lee.

That is probably one of the rare unsigned Alan Lee books in the wild