4-Book Tolkien Deluxe Edition Collection Set from HC

Hi
A nice set indeed. Have you thought about buying the books seperately. I bet you could get them a lot cheaper than £200. You would not have the slipcase I accept but if on a budget that is the way to do it i think or why not ask Harper Collins if they could do a discount?

The books that I've seen separately on ebay, Abebooks, etc. actually seem to be more expensive when put together (plus I would like the box!). Asking HC for a discount is a good idea, but how do I get the books to me in the US? I did email them once and they said they wouldn't ship to the US (and I don't know anyone well in the UK).

This box set is over 6 kilo and shipping costs to the US are more then 25 GBP for sure. I can deliver the set to you, but not at the price you are looking for.

Perhaps I underestimated shipping costs, but I'm guessing you charge more than the 200 GBP (publisher's price) for the books. On the Tolkien Library site I see they go for 400 GBP (and supposedly don't ship to the US) which is more than I can afford. What's your best estimate for shipping this set to the US? By the way I was very pleased recently to receive the deluxe Tolkien Tapestry (#65) from Amazon.ca.

Send an email to [email protected] and ask for delivery costs to the US. Though the site manages to hide it quite well, they do now deliver worldwide

http://www.tolkien.co.uk/Help/Pages/D ... y-and-Return-Details.aspx

I bought this set too a while ago. My set was comprised of first editions of The Hobbit, The Silmarillion and The Children of Hurin. However The Lord of the Rings was a first edition/third impression. Ideally I would have liked a first impresson of LOTR too but it seems LOTR was already a second impression in the first sets that were sold. See http://www.tolkienbooks.net/php/details.php?reference=87680 for more info.

Just something to keep in mind when considering to buy the set from HarperCollins instead of from Ebay/Abebooks etc.

I thought the shipping restriction to the US on this was lifted years ago, to be honest.

The set I got from HC three years back contains 1/1 (CoH), 1/1 (Sil) ,1/1 (Hobbit) ,1/2 (LOTR). The cost was GBP 140 (discounted by 40%) + GBP 5 standard international shipping (to Australia). i.e. All up GBP 145.

Originally this was claimed as a limited set of 500, but they subsequently dropped that claim, so who knows? The books themselves have always been marked as being "available for a limited time only" and for some of the books that limited time has now extended to 8 years and 4+ printings...

I wouldn't recommend paying 200 pounds these books, and to be honest, I wouldn't get too excited about the slipcase. The books look better without it, especially if you have the other two matching(ish) editions.

You could certainly pick them up cheaper on eBay given time (CoH, particularly, is basically worthless on the second hand market), but the postage might well be the killer if you had to get them separately.


Stu

Edit: http://www.tolkien.co.uk/Help/Pages/D ... y-and-Return-Details.aspx shows that delivery costs have not increased. 4.99 per book + 99p per additional. This counts as one book.

I've sent HC an email about shipping to the US and a possible discount; I'm awaiting their reply. Stu - 145 GBP sounds like a good price for the set - do you think a similar discount is likely to happen again in the near future? Does anyone have experience asking HC for a discount on an item and getting one? I'd seen that they ship outside the UK, but when I try to purchase the item, I get the message: "Sorry but the following products are not available for sale to your country and will be removed from your basket." Thus I'm not so optimistic they'll ship to me.

So I've got some conflicting opinions: 200 GBP is too much Stu says; Beren could sell it to me for more. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Beren - what's your price?

Karl wrote:
I've sent HC an email about shipping to the US and a possible discount; I'm awaiting their reply. Stu - 145 GBP sounds like a good price for the set - do you think a similar discount is likely to happen again in the near future? Does anyone have experience asking HC for a discount on an item and getting one? I'd seen that they ship outside the UK, but when I try to purchase the item, I get the message: "Sorry but the following products are not available for sale to your country and will be removed from your basket." Thus I'm not so optimistic they'll ship to me.

So I've got some conflicting opinions: 200 GBP is too much Stu says; Beren could sell it to me for more. Anyone else want to weigh in?

Beren - what's your price?

Hi Karl,

It may be that HC didn't get the exemption that would allow them to sell the boxed set to the US. They certainly did get an agreement (with HMH presumably) that allowed them to sell the Super-deluxe volumes direct to the US.

HC used to periodically do fairly regular discounts across the board (usually 30 or 40 percent), but I'm no longer on their mailing list (as I changed email addresses and their website doesn't actually allow you to update your email address!). I'm not sure if they still do these routinely or if they just have occasional discounts on selected products or groups of products. Their website is crap and doesn't always even give you the advertised discount on a product!

With regards to Beren's price -- obviously he has paid to purchase the book up front (and may well have paid full retail in the hope the set would sell out and go up in value), so I imagine he would have to charge more than the 200 just to cover his sunk costs (although I can't speak for him -- this is purely supposition). Obviously you wouldn't pay the (speculative) 400 pounds that he has it advertised for unless you were a total loony.

[EDIT: Beren has corrected me that the price is GBP 330 - That'll teach me not to rely on my dubious memory! Sorry, Beren]

In terms of purchasing from HC, I am aware of people asking for (and being given) 30% discounts on the Super-Deluxe books, so it would not be unprecedented to be given a discount that was not advertised.

Cheers
Stu