Is Christopher Tolkien's sig a worthy investment?

Hi
I am lucky enough to have both of these books. The COH is in my opinion a nicer book but maybe others may disagree. I think Christopher Tolkiens signature is a good investment but maybe not at £350. Until recently Harper Collins had up to 30% off as I recall so maybe hold fire.
They do come up on ebay every now and again which is how I brought my for circa £200 each. Indeed a Lof S went for £175 in May!

If I was you I would give serious thought to going for the signed Silmarillion currently on ebay. I am guessing it will go for £2-400 so maybe within your budget?

If not my advice would be wait till right price comes along.

Good luck

Thanks for your help -can you post a link to the auction you are talking about, as I can't seem to find it!

Oh I found it now!

well I went in at £201 which seemed OK until 10 seconds to go when it shot up to £404! Couldn't part with that much I'm afraid. Shame, was excited about that all day!

MMMMM thats ebay for you.
dont think £201 was going to win it but worth a try.

Did any of you other folk win it?

Well the guy had spelled 'silmarillion' incorrectly so I hoped that would mean a bit less traffic to the auction but obviously not!

Wow! that's a lot of money for a signature (nice as it is). I've just done a quick count-up; ten so far as I can recall. Some are everyday - eg the Hobbit signed by Alan Lee and CT, and the full-leather Sigurd, and CoH. Plus the Silm. de luxe signed by CT, and Ted Nasmith. These are as they come, off the shelf.

Then there are the less usual ones; the full-leather TH with a signed bookplate for instance, ditto the Silm. And a 'de luxe' CoH, also ditto.

Finally, there are a couple of quite rare items, which I shan't say too much about.

I've little idea of monetary values of these items (and no, I'm not asking for opinions). None of these will be sold in my lifetime. if they should turn out to have been investments (a thought which really doesn't bother me) then my heirs will reap any future benefit, not me.

I was going to post a rather long reply here bruffyboy giving some prices of all eBay book auctions I noted with Christopher Tolkien's signature; but I ain't got the time (or will!).

I've seen four previous eBay auctions selling CT signed copies of The Silmarilion; specifically copies signed and sold to GA&U employees --like the one you discuss here.

2006: "Father worked for GA&U" £105
2006: Another, same story, but slightly poorer provenance £103
2008: ditto, vg provenance, with documentation £92
[2009: Signed sticker affixed (signed at Cent. Conf.) £102]
2010: Another employee copy, withdrawn.

So, as you can see, there is no previous history of prices like £414. Although this does follow some more recent form of disappointingly high prices paid for copies of The Silmarillion e.g the flatsigned.com Billing copy sold this April, with signed label affixed, some dubious paperwork, and a customised slipcase: $2200 (£1428).

There have of course been many other CT signed books sold on eBay: CoH deluxe, CoH launch day signed copies (UK & US), deluxe Hobbit, S&G, 1998 Silm deluxe, 1982 Silm deluxe, and a few other miscellaneous signed copies, and several copycat fakes. Overwhelmingly, with many of these being published signed copies, and being excellent books in their own right, prices of these are high.

I can post eBay prices (I've noted) for an idea of market form if you like. I think this copy you went for was a good chance at a cheaper CT signature acquisition; not worth £400+ though.

BH

Khamul - thanks so much for that info, and I would love to hear other details you may have. It is hard for me as a new collector to know what is a decent price and what is not. I actually fell in love with Tolkien ten years back, and have owned and sold a few nice editions in that time, but only now am I in the position to spend a couple of hundred pounds each and every month on these books!

I wrote my dissertation for my degree on the Christian themes in LOTR- is there somewhere you can recommend that may publish this? I would be happy to email a copy if you'd care to read it!