Think he was referring to these as first impressions, not the later variants, or that edition as only one printing was produced.

http://tolkienbooks.net/php/details2.php?id=1203

Hello everybody and many thanks for you suggestions, I did eventually reach an agreement with a kind ebayer and bought both this LOTR edition plus the deluxe edition "Poems and Stories" at £120+shipping, which I think is not a bad deal.

Yeh, that's fairly decent I suppose. £50-60 each doesn't feel unreasonable, assuming they're in VG/VG or better condition...

Khamûl wrote:
Yeh, that's fairly decent I suppose. £50-60 each doesn't feel unreasonable, assuming they're in VG/VG or better condition...

Yes they seem so in photos, I'll let you know once I get my hands on them. :)

Overall I feel it's a pretty good deal also because I'm paying for shipping only once (shipping from UK to Italy is somewhat expensive as of lately).