I highly encourage any Amazon book purchases to be gift wrapped, as that may mitigate some damage during shipping.

insurrbution wrote:

I highly encourage any Amazon book purchases to be gift wrapped, as that may mitigate some damage during shipping.

Definitely agree with this—my order of this particular set from Amazon.co.uk arrived in a completely torn cardboard box (the books could easily be taken out of it without having to open it any further) and it's a wonder that only one corner of the slipcase was dented. In my opinion, it's almost certainly worth a little extra money to get your books elsewhere.

Hello, first time posting here.

With the recent announcement of the upcoming illustrated edition, I started looking for an illustrated set that is out now.

I was thinking about the Alan lee box set, but the price in America is now over $200. Why has the price gone up so much?

I’ve enjoyed reading many of forums and appreciate all the help this site provides.

Hello Falkor and welcome to the site.

I expected the box-set to only be available for a limited period, while the books would be available for a much longer period. This does not seem to have happened and it is still available in the UK for about £60. I think the problem is that these companies are not prepared to ship it internationally which is why it is so expensive for you.

If you look at the thread for the new Tolkien illustrated Lord of the Rings, I have included links to quite a few sellers, you could try those links but replace the ISBN with 9780008376109 to see what prices they give with US shipping included.

Falkor wrote:

Hello, first time posting here.

With the recent announcement of the upcoming illustrated edition, I started looking for an illustrated set that is out now.

I was thinking about the Alan lee box set, but the price in America is now over $200. Why has the price gone up so much?

I’ve enjoyed reading many of forums and appreciate all the help this site provides.

You'll have to import it. It is not for sale "IN" the US.

Falkor wrote:

Hello, first time posting here.

With the recent announcement of the upcoming illustrated edition, I started looking for an illustrated set that is out now.

I was thinking about the Alan lee box set, but the price in America is now over $200. Why has the price gone up so much?

I’ve enjoyed reading many of forums and appreciate all the help this site provides.

Welcome to the site! Hope we can be helpful, and help you with your Tolkien collecting. ?

Blackwell's has it for about $140 shipped to the USA at this time.

This site uses affiliate links for which we may be compensated

The Hobbit & The Lord of the Rings

J. R. R. Tolkien (author), Alan Lee (illustrator), J. R. R. Tolkien

9780008376109

(hardback (slipcased))

$163.00

Availability: Usually dispatched within 48 hours

Check at Blackwell's

Thanks everyone!

I’ll probably order from blackwells shortly

I ended up ordering from Amazon UK for about $100 including shipping to Texas

Thanks again for everyone’s help

Well maybe I should have gone with blackwells instead.

Just received order in from Amazon UK and the slipcase has some damage.

I don’t have much faith that Amazon could do a better job with another set.

Falkor wrote:

Well maybe I should have gone with blackwells instead.

Just received order in from Amazon UK and the slipcase has some damage.

I don’t have much faith that Amazon could do a better job with another set.

Sorry to see that happened! I agree, the packaging that Amazon did for you looks very typical to what I have seen and received myself - no padding to protect heavy sets, box crushed, slipcase ending up with split edges and damaged corners. If you try again with Amazon, it will come "packed" the same, and likely will end up with similar damage.

If you don't want to keep it, Amazon will refund you if you go through their returns process and say that it was damaged during shipping. Sometimes they will just refund you and let you keep it, but often they will have you ship the set back to them (at great cost, but they always have refunded me the return shipping cost when I have done this).