I can confirm that my 2 spare copies were received in the UK ;)

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THE HOBBIT LIMITED EDITION x Folio Society - J. R. R. Tolkien Fast Shipping

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I must say, reading this thread in the days following the release of this book, and reading of the production faults customers were encountering, I was dreading receiving my copy, being half a world away (Aus). But when it arrived, I went through it page by page, and tipped-in plate by tipped-in plate, and I could find no fault with the copy I received. Similarly with the previous edition of "The Lord of the Rings".

How was your copy Mr Underhill?

Algar wrote:

I must say, reading this thread in the days following the release of this book, and reading of the production faults customers were encountering, I was dreading receiving my copy, being half a world away (Aus). But when it arrived, I went through it page by page, and tipped-in plate by tipped-in plate, and I could find no fault with the copy I received. Similarly with the previous edition of "The Lord of the Rings".

You were very lucky to get both without issue. Both myself and Mr. Underhill had disappointing experiences with both titles. LoTR seems to have been a little less problematic than The Hobbit, but actual numbers can only really be guessed at. Of people I know that got them personally, seems to be 50:50. Straw poll online was about 35 (faulty):65 (acceptable). Of course, what is acceptable to one buyer may not be acceptable to another (and vice-versa).

My Folio "A man on the Moon", "Moonstone LE" and "Beowulf LE" are all flawless. (though they sent me The Moonstone by mistake instead of A man on the Moon... -- their customer service rectified that right away). Interestingly A man on the moon uses the same cloth as The Hobbit/LotR (but in black and used for the spine and back cover of each volume) and is also printed and bound by LEGO. For whatever reason, they were able to print/bind those without making a mess of it.

Tall Hobbit wrote:

How was your copy Mr Underhill?

I received my replacement copy on Friday evening, Folio had assured me that they would send a notification when it had shipped out, they did not. I had to chase them down for one, and when I did get a reply the book was already in Austin and out for delivery. Anyway, this copy was better packaged than the original, more snug in the box and with paper around the book and map individually.

The book itself is of better quality than the original, paper is slightly better, slipcase has no fading to the stamping and of course all the illustrations are there(the original was missing seven) the number is XXX and not XXX/1000. Overall I ended up with a better product this time around, now if they had just done this originally...

Pictured is the original on the left and replacement on the right.

Very unfortunate experiences , regarding their Hobbit and Lord of the Rings. Until those two, I’ve always heard FS held in high regard, with close-to-perfect releases.

It seems as if since 2020 there’s some kind of quality-control ‘curse’ with higher-end releases - no matter who the publisher is. Quite odd.

There was a post recently, from Trotter I think, reporting that Harper Collins sales of Tolkien were up ~20% on the year. With that, I would guess sales of all things Tolkien, Harper Collins or otherwise, are up a good bit. When your goal is maximizing revenue, and you know there will likely be lots of sales regardless of quality, the temptation to cut corners on quality control even in premium "deluxe" "limited edition" etc. products, is probably too much to resist in many cases.

On the bright side, it's probably a great trend for those of us who just want more Tolkien, even if the quality control is dodgy sometimes!

Well it shouldn’t be doggy. I mean, if a publisher can’t make a book without foil flaking off (or other such issues) that prevent it from being used without causing damage (structural or aesthetic) - IMHO, it’s not worth it.

At times, it FEELS as if they’re trying to push us to get paperbacks or eBooks in order to ‘avoid’ those issues by getting a lower-tiered version.

Though that’s all I’ve to say at the moment, without veering the thread too far off-topic.

Eye_of_the_Black_Tower wrote:

Well it shouldn’t be doggy. I mean, if a publisher can’t make a book without foil flaking off (or other such issues) that prevent it from being used without causing damage (structural or aesthetic) - IMHO, it’s not worth it.

At times, it FEELS as if they’re trying to push us to get paperbacks or eBooks in order to ‘avoid’ those issues by getting a lower-tiered version.

Though that’s all I’ve to say at the moment, without veering the thread too far off-topic.

I don't think that's the case. I think it is just a desire on the part of publishers to make the most profit per unit. Deluxe books are very profitable if you only pretend to make them deluxe. We have certainly seen a degree of "Ens**tiffication" of the deluxe books with the last few releases. It is just about profit. They really do want you to buy the book or they wouldn't make it -- they just don't want to/are unable to produce it for a price that gives them the desired margins without cutting corners and/or producing junk. This is really obvious in deluxe titles such as Battle of Maldon and History of the Hobbit from HarperCollins, but is just the same problem with Folio.