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.

Publishers make very little money on paperbacks. They would much rather you buy the Deluxe volume as The profit margin on higher end items is better, so as Stu says what we’re seeing is them trying to keep production costs as low as possible while increasing profit margin.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

The book itself is of better quality than the original, paper is slightly better,

Mr. Underhill - would you say the Munken Pure paper on your new copy is now the same as the Munken Pure used on LotR? One of my real disappointments with this release was that the paper wasn't nearly as smooth/nice (I really felt the great paper was the saving-grace of the Folio LoTR)

With different paper and a different numbering format, I think these tranche 2 books can be considered a second state.

One other minor question - the map folders when closed had boards, with the back sticking out further than the front by a couple of mm (and I believe all tranche 1 copies were like this) - did they rectify that for the new copies?

The late Stu wrote:

Mr. Underhill wrote:

The book itself is of better quality than the original, paper is slightly better,

Mr. Underhill - would you say the Munken Pure paper on your new copy is now the same as the Munken Pure used on LotR? One of my real disappointments with this release was that the paper wasn't nearly as smooth/nice (I really felt the great paper was the saving-grace of the Folio LoTR)

With different paper and a different numbering format, I think these tranche 2 books can be considered a second state.

One other minor question - the map folders when closed had boards, with the back sticking out further than the front by a couple of mm (and I believe all tranche 1 copies were like this) - did they rectify that for the new copies?

I would say yes, that the paper on the 2nd State as you call it is much more on par with the LoTR release from a couple of years ago.

In regards to the fold out map, the folds look pretty even as far as I can tell.

Mr. Underhill wrote:

I would say yes, that the paper on the 2nd State as you call it is much more on par with the LoTR release from a couple of years ago.

I'm very happy to hear that. Much of my initial disappointment with the edition was actually the noticeably less nice paper. I forgave a lot on the LoTR because the paper was so damn nice, but The Hobbit didn't have that advantage and all the other flaws were thrown into sharp relief!

Great to hear! And an added bonus if the paper is better quality than the first batch.

I'd love to say I received a perfect copy, but....... nope.

On the plus side, no marks, scratches or rubs. Slipcase is perfect, map booklet is perfect.

On the negative side (the book!), they didn't glue the cloth onto the cover properly, so it is bubbling away along the bottom front (about an inch or so along the bottom-left of the front board, a cm or so running along the rest of that board. Same on the bottom, but more loose towards the right. Loose front and rear along the boundary with the leather, where it needs to bridge the gap between the slight rise of the leather and the board.

Makes a nice loud stick/release creaking sound as you push on the loose stuff....

Regarding the paper, couldn't see personally any noticeable difference between this and the first batch.

Holy cow I don’t think we saw anything like this with the LoTR sets. That’s really bad. This is really embarrassing for Folio Society.