Its Always Been a Dream of Mine to Own a Set of First Edition of The Lord of the Rings.

Spines look pretty faded in the pictures. I'd also ask for pictures of the boards and if there is any writing inside if you haven't already. I think that price is pretty fair all things considered, maybe a little high but I'm sure someone who knows the market better will chime in. You may be able to piece together a nicer set of similar or later impressions for cheaper.

Thank you for the response ! There are these 3 pictures of the inside board of each there is a sticker on each of the original book seller. Which honestly I like as it feels like these 3 have been together since the 50s

First of all, welcome to the site!

The set looks in reasonably good condition, and the price seems about right given the current market as I think (at least for now) gone are the days where you could find a set like this for a few hundred dollars. One thing to keep in mind when collecting these sets is that it'll always be cheaper to assemble a set, that is buy singles and put them together rather than a set already together.

The images you provided do look okay though.

Thank you for the warm welcome and the advice here ! Do you have any recommendations for resources on assembling a set ? I've been searching through Ebay and some other sites.

Welcome.

Abebooks.com might have something. I’ve purchased many books from this website over the years. Remember that you are buying from individual sellers.

Personally, I don’t like books with bookplates (the sticker), so I would pursue another set and be patient. Patience is the key to finding what you want.

I do like the idea of gradually assembling your own set—book by book. I think this is good advice.

I will take a look through the listings there and see if I can find anything ! Ive bought a couple books from there in the past as well ! If you have any other tips on putting together a set I would love to hear them. Owning these is a huge dream of mine and now that it feels within reach I've sort of got myself obsessed with the idea.

Nikoda wrote:

Thank you for the warm welcome and the advice here ! Do you have any recommendations for resources on assembling a set ? I've been searching through Ebay and some other sites.

First, I have a 1959 US set I put together by accident (the 1959 part was the accident) and they are my favorite books. If you like this set, snap it up.
If you want to try an piece together a set, have you tried bookfinder.com? It searches many sites at once and links you to every book it finds. For instance, here a HB search for The Fellowship of the Ring, published by George Allen & Unwin from 1954-1965. 1966 had the final 1st editions, but also started the 2nd Editions, so will show 2nd editions way beyond that year.
BookFinder.com The Fellowship of the Ring

I have not used Bookfinder this seems really cool. I will play around with this. Ive made an offer to the guy selling the set that I posted about. If he accepts my current offer I think im going to grab it. The only thing that bothers me about them is the faded spine but from the last while of digging it seems like those spines aren't really all that bad considering what it could be with rips and such. Im going to play around with Bookfinder and see if I can get lucky and get my first of the set at the least ! I really appreciate the help here !

I will just add that a lot of price tolerance depends on your timeframe. If you just really want a set now, or relatively quickly, it may be that it will be hard to assemble a set based on current listings and you may prefer to grab the set you have your eye on.

But if you are diligent and patient, you will often be rewarded. Individual first edition volumes come available for reasonable prices somewhat regularly and, like others have said, if you are patient you will likely be able to put together a set for cheaper over time, perhaps one that is in better condition or maybe even earlier impressions. But that also takes time and requires you to keep an eye out for three different books instead of taking the easy path of grabbing a single set.

I'll admit that there's a relief and satisfaction to just getting it over with. When I first started collecting, I tended to grab rare books I liked even if the price was a bit high just because I really wanted the book and hadn't see one available for the past month or so, and I didn't have the experience to know how often items I wanted would come available. But the more time you spend looking for books, you realize that many of the things you want to do come available fairly regularly. Once every 6 months may not seem often for someone who has just been looking in the past 2-3 months, but if you are willing to be patient, you may find what you're looking for over 2-5 years. Only you can decide which way is preferable for you.