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.

Really important people know how poor the quality control is for these Folio Hobbits. Just very lucky I didnt fall for it TBH. I did get the LotRs and was fortunate with my set. Imagine buying a flipped copy off of eBay and it turns out to be like this? My guess is you wont have any comeback. Buyer beware.

Lake Town Geezer wrote:

Really important people know how poor the quality control is for these Folio Hobbits. Just very lucky I didnt fall for it TBH. I did get the LotRs and was fortunate with my set. Imagine buying a flipped copy off of eBay and it turns out to be like this? My guess is you wont have any comeback. Buyer beware.

If you bought from an eBay seller and it is defective, you can return for a refund under eBay rules. Then it would be up to the eBay seller to handle their own refund/replacement with Folio. But yeah, it could end up being a hassle and having eBay step in (they generally side with the buyer from what I understand).

Folio are making a whole new batch of these Hobbits. I'm strongly suspecting it is a *lot* of them. They will then will be collecting the defective copies (presumably to be destroyed and avoid them finding their way onto the secondary market). I mean, at least they aren't expecting the return until they have supplied the replacement, so can read it (and I will, without worrying about its obvious fragility). One thing I did notice this morning is that the paper isn't as nice as LotR (which had fantastic paper). It isn't bad paper, but you wouldn't think twice about it if you found it in a HarperCollins illustrated trade.

Also worthy of note is that despite the size, the 2000 oversize HarperCollins illustrated Alan Lee softback (i.e. dirt cheap) Hobbit has significantly larger illustrations. The quality is a little better on the Folio, and obviously the Folio has the decorative borders taking up much of the page space, but there isn't that much in it, really. If they do a Silmarillion, I think I'll be passing that one by unless it is a completely different design and materials than Hobbit/LotR.