What is my best bet for owning an inexpensive Tolkien Signature?

You can ask here about signed items, but you are alerting members to the item and you need to be very careful with Tolkien signatures, so many at the moment are fakes.

Trotters advise is good and I would be very very careful about buying with so many fakes around. I am afraid to buy Tolkiens signature is a costly business and I dont know of any economical ways around it.

Supply is low , Demand high and thus this will drive prices up.

If you see one cheap (ie certain ebay sellers) then it is fake for sure.
Stick with the books if i were you.

I think I need to reiterate here, but J.R.R. Tolkien signed very few items in his lifetime compared to modern authors. There was no concept of signing sessions while J.R.R. Tolkien was alive.

He did however correspond a lot, so there are a lot of letters from Tolkien, but you need to be very careful with these as some individuals seem to find Tolkien's signature very easy to imitate.

A Canadian eBay seller currently has been offering a lot of signed Tolkien items (claims that he is not a dealer so has no idea on authenticity) but with no provenance or refund policy.

I would not buy from any seller who does not offer refunds on signatures, in my experience every reputable dealer will.

Hi Qwiniden -

There is some pretty good advice here. Suggest the following:

(1) Educate yourself about the signature. Read over the many threads here, for instance. Knowing the comments of real experts here could save you disappointment (and a lot of money!)

(2) Educate yourself about the market. As Laurel said, supply and demand dictate the price. The cost of a signed book may be different from that of a significant, hand-written letter. Try to figure out what would make you happy or at least be "good enough."

(3) If the seller won't provide a letter of provenance OR such a letter does not add up, avoid the item. Such a letter is all important to my mind. If it's eBay, check out the seller's feedback and ask the experts here about the item. OK, you will alert others here to the item. But I'd bet that "everyone" already is aware of it. It is, after all, eBay!

(4) Ask LOTS of questions of the seller BEFORE you buy. You would certainly be asking many afterwards if you are unhappy with your purchase. So why not do your homework first?

(5) If eBay is too risky, there are certainly experts here with genuine items for sale. Talk to them (suggest you take such discussions off line once you do.) Let them know what you're interested in, see what they have. If they don't currently have what you are most interested in, perhaps they will in the future.

I don't know that the advice in this thread will get you an inexpensive signature (Trotter's comments stand.) But an inexpensive fake is no bargain! Good Luck!

Away from The Green Hill Country,

Parmastahir

I don't agree on point (3)... if the sellers fakes the autograph he surely will not mind faking the letter of provenance, in fact most people who fake items tend to add a COA. That piece of paper is worth absolutely nothing to me.

Anyways, just my opinion.

(3) If the seller won't provide a letter of provenance OR such a letter does not add up, avoid the item. Such a letter is all important to my mind. If it's eBay, check out the seller's feedback and ask the experts here about the item. OK, you will alert others here to the item. But I'd bet that "everyone" already is aware of it. It is, after all, eBay!

Beren as expected is correct here, you need a trustworthy independent source of provenance for the item not a COA from the seller, a letter of provenance only means something if it can be reliably and independently validated.