northman wrote:

This discussion comes with some regularity when new editions are published. I think most of us are reduced to subjective opinions here: the paper is good/the paper is not good, the illustrations are well reproduced/the illustrations are poorly reproduced, the binding is good/not good. Certainly one can say something about the binding being sewn or glued, but a sewn binding doesnt have to be good, and a glued binding doesnt have to be bad. One can compare different renditions of illustrations by say Ted Nasmith and compare then to prints Ted has made himself and say something objective, but one doesnt always have originals or official prints to compare with.

I would love to see the Guide do an objective comparison of various editions regarding paper quality, binding, illustrations. For example how does the centenary 1992 Alan Lee illustrated Hardbacks compare with the 2002 illustrated hardbacks and the recent hobbit + LotR box set. How do the early L.E.G.O. prints of the slipcase deluxe series compare with later printings? There are some established 'truths' in the collectors community, but what are the objective parameters here?

Finally regarding feedback to the publisher: I would guess the main reason the quality of books would drop would be production cost or environmental considerations. I doubt feedback from users would do much about that. As for things related to quality control I think the burden of evidence can be tricky. We saw examples of badly printed copies of the recent illustrated LotR deluxe, but a publisher can always question the sample size. Are we talking about one flawed copy out of 500? We do know some people contacted Harper Collins about that deluxe, but the deluxe illustrated Silmarillion that followed seemed to suffer from a lack of quality control as well regarding smudging of letters on the spine (it might be the first book ive done damage to just by picking it up and flipping through a few pages), but again i'm one reader/example.

I haven't received this recent HoME box set yet. Personally I'm getting it because I want a hardback set with John Howes amazing coverart. From what i see in the pictures I will be a happy customer/collector. I am not buying these books to read them.

northman wrote:

As for things related to quality control I think the burden of evidence can be tricky. We saw examples of badly printed copies of the recent illustrated LotR deluxe, but a publisher can always question the sample size. Are we talking about one flawed copy out of 500? We do know some people contacted Harper Collins about that deluxe, but the deluxe illustrated Silmarillion that followed seemed to suffer from a lack of quality control as well regarding smudging of letters on the spine (it might be the first book ive done damage to just by picking it up and flipping through a few pages), but again i'm one reader/example.

Velmeran wrote:

northman wrote:

This discussion comes with some regularity when new editions are published. I think most of us are reduced to subjective opinions here: the paper is good/the paper is not good, the illustrations are well reproduced/the illustrations are poorly reproduced, the binding is good/not good. Certainly one can say something about the binding being sewn or glued, but a sewn binding doesnt have to be good, and a glued binding doesnt have to be bad. One can compare different renditions of illustrations by say Ted Nasmith and compare then to prints Ted has made himself and say something objective, but one doesnt always have originals or official prints to compare with.

I would love to see the Guide do an objective comparison of various editions regarding paper quality, binding, illustrations. For example how does the centenary 1992 Alan Lee illustrated Hardbacks compare with the 2002 illustrated hardbacks and the recent hobbit + LotR box set. How do the early L.E.G.O. prints of the slipcase deluxe series compare with later printings? There are some established 'truths' in the collectors community, but what are the objective parameters here?

Finally regarding feedback to the publisher: I would guess the main reason the quality of books would drop would be production cost or environmental considerations. I doubt feedback from users would do much about that. As for things related to quality control I think the burden of evidence can be tricky. We saw examples of badly printed copies of the recent illustrated LotR deluxe, but a publisher can always question the sample size. Are we talking about one flawed copy out of 500? We do know some people contacted Harper Collins about that deluxe, but the deluxe illustrated Silmarillion that followed seemed to suffer from a lack of quality control as well regarding smudging of letters on the spine (it might be the first book ive done damage to just by

I think something like that could be quite helpful for new and old collections alike; however one needs to remember that materials and quality can change between print runs.
The perceived quality of the 2020 Hobbit/LotR Illustrated Boxset seems to different quite a bit between the 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th etc. printings.

So someone issuing a blanket statement of [Release A] has better [Attribute 1] than [Release B] may not actually be the case.

This is very true and essential for collation of experiences although we can of course only report our own preference, opinion and experience. I agree that stating the specific edition would be beneficial to this process.