There you are. We live and learn 🙂. What years are the 13th to 17th impressions?

Thanks remy, I knew it was on the rear of a 1997 illustrated Hobbit without runic bands.

Thanks folks!

I have updated Lawrence's "Catalogue of Alan Lee's Middle-earth Illustrations" accordingly: https://lawrencemvc.wordpress.com/2021 ... 7/alan-lee-illustrations/

Mine will be going back. No other obvious faults, but the back is pretty messy.

The late Stu wrote:

Mine will be going back. No other obvious faults, but the back is pretty messy.

That’s terrible, I would definitely send that back. Unacceptable really for a £600 item. I really am shocked at some of the QC issues I have seen(including mine). I have seen reports of uneven stamping on the case too.

It seems like after the success of the LoTR set sales, they decided to put less effort in and charge more. 😕

Mr. Underhill wrote:

The late Stu wrote:

Mine will be going back. No other obvious faults, but the back is pretty messy.

That’s terrible, I would definitely send that back. Unacceptable really for a £600 item. I really am shocked at some of the QC issues I have seen(including mine). I have seen reports of uneven stamping on the case too.

It seems like after the success of the LoTR set sales, they decided to put less effort in and charge more. 😕

What I don't understand is that they had a load of serious problems with LotR, and yet they seem to have done nothing different this time around. Both LEGO and Folio share guilt for screwing this up... again. At £600 (or £728 delivered in my case), you would think it would be possible to bind one book to the same standard as a decent trade edition, yet here we are. Anecdotally I have heard (and been told) there is a huge return rate on these.

Entirely avoidable, simply by everyone in the supply and production chain caring about what they produced.