Well, I suppose that crow should on my lunch menu today. To my surprise, HC replied in just over one hour with the following:

Dear Sir,

I am in receipt of your e-mail regarding the DHL post charge showing on your invoice.

In regards to the incorrect charge of £7.44, please disregard this item I can reassure you that your credit card has not been charged this . This is an internal oversight which has now been corrected.

Sorry for any inconvenience

Kind regards

Anyway, I got my book within their stated delivery time, well packaged and as described. That is all that can be expected (and it is appreciated). In the future, I will certainly afford them the benefit of the doubt.

My copies arrived just today. Dont know why it took so long (to Ireland). Very impressed with the packing.

Anyway, I ordered 2 copies by phone at the same time and I ended up with copies 38 and 14. Go figure! The allocation of the numbers all seems a little random.

Have not had time to open up and examine, but looking forward to doing that later.

Anyway, I ordered 2 copies by phone at the same time and I ended up with copies 38 and 14. Go figure! The allocation of the numbers all seems a little random.

To be honest, it might well be as simple as the way the books are stacked in the warehouse for picking. This coupled with the multiplexing of the phone orders and web orders into the invoicing/order picking system would probably result in something approximating sequential allocation ( becoming more accurate as the number of orders falls off). I imagine doing anything more accurate would simply be more effort than it is worth (and no one ever claimed to be allocating sequentially this time around, anyway).

I've only seen one mention of a number over 50 so far.

From an email I got from HC:

The exclusive collector's leather-bound edition has been a great success with Tolkien fans, as expected, and there's still time for you to get your copy at our special introductory price of just £250. As with all good things this offer won't last for much longer and will revert to the R.R.P. of £350 at midnight on 30th June 2009, so make sure you don't miss this great opportunity!

I expect it will be discounted by up to 30% from the GBP350 in the future (as happened with CoH SD), but it may be that GBP250(ish) is as good a price as will come along for this any time soon.

Hi all. This is about the super deluxe edition of the children of hurin, just thought id give my two bobs worth. I orderd a copy of the super deluxe edition of the children of hurin and a signed copy of tales from the perilous realm on the 9th of july.
I live at the bottom of Western Australia and was shiting myself with worry. I was thinking about all the things that could go wrong and reading peoples reports about Harper Collins service wasnt helping. I have never had problems with them directly but i no they can leave much to be desired.

I went to the post office today to find a parcel awaiting me (today being the 21st). I was exited but still a little worried, so i raced home to open it.
Upon opening the parcel i discoverd that everything was as it should be.
My only complaint being i dont know the number for CoH as i am not going to open it. I am saving up for a reading copy.

So i must say a big thankyou to Harper Collins for there excellent service and hope that it is now standard as i will be making more purchases in the, i hope, near future.

loonka wrote:
My only complaint being i dont know the number for CoH as i am not going to open it.

I will have to have a look at the cardboard box for my unopened Super Deluxe Children of Hurin but it either had a handwritten number or a printed label with a number on. That number is the number of the book.

loonka wrote:
I am saving up for a reading copy.

Buy the paperback for a reading copy. It has the same pictures as the SuperDeluxe.

Ah, please excuse my stupidity and ignorance. I now see a small black sticker with a number on it.

Dear Trotter, i am afraid i do have a standad paperback edition, and a couple of normal hardcovers. I have my super deluxe edition to keep, but i need another to open, to smell and touch and read.
Mental i know,...its a problem

loonka wrote:
Ah, please excuse my stupidity and ignorance. I now see a small black sticker with a number on it.

Dear Trotter, i am afraid i do have a standad paperback edition, and a couple of normal hardcovers. I have my super deluxe edition to keep, but i need another to open, to smell and touch and read.
Mental i know,...its a problem

You might have noticed that I mentioned my unopened copy, I have two copies of the Super Deluxe book one which is open and one still in the box. I also have a paperback copy, a signed Trade Edition and a signed Deluxe Edition. Though I would always read the paperback copy.

Can you let us know the number of your book, we are trying to find out when HC may run out of these books for sale?

Andrew

Yeah sure.
Its number 341.
I wish it to be known that i am very ashamed for leaving it so long to purchase a copy but.....money

loonka wrote:
Yeah sure.
Its number 341.
I wish it to be known that i am very ashamed for leaving it so long to purchase a copy but.....money

I would not feel ashamed about any books that you buy, Tolkien book collecting is not about feeling ashamed.

It is a very nice book, but very expensive, I bought on the first day without the discounts that you can now get

Harper Collins were very upset with the prices on eBay from the bookplates which they gave out for free in the Trade and Deluxe versions of the book at the release events for the book, as they did not get any direct benefit. Sadly we will not see this type of event again.

Instead we now get Super Deluxe Editions and Harper Collins are trying to maximize the revenue from the book by selling 500 limited copies at a high price (even with a discount a lot more than my signed Deluxe COH at Waterstones).

The Super Deluxe book is clearly still far too expensive, if you have copy 341 then 159 are still unsold. I would estimate 3-4 years before they all are sold, which again shows they are overpriced.

If you like this book, you also may want to get the Super Deluxe Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, though it is not as good a quality as COH.

Welcome to the tolkienguide.com forum as well, your description of "Mental I know,...it's a problem", is shared by a lot of members of this forum (including me)