1987 The Hobbit #13 of 500 (signed)

I guess your referring to this copy

https://affiliates.abebooks.com/c/9724 ... 253D1987%2526yrl%253D1987

I don't think David Miller is in a great hurry to sell that book and would be pleased to get the asking price for it. However this book has been on sale for a long time at that price.

Do you still have the original box as this also signed by Christopher Tolkien?

The unsigned copies can be bought for about £400, I have seen some being offered at nearly £1000 as well though, and there are 4 times as many of the unsigned as signed, so on that basis alone £1500-£1600 would have seemed a good price.

Unfortunately would is the operative word for you, the credit crunch has inevitably had an impact on the higher priced Tolkien Books and someone who would have paid that a year ago will now have second thoughts.

You may be better off keeping the book for another couple of years, 2011 could be a good year for 'The Hobbit' books if a certain film comes out produced by Peter Jackson.

Thank you very much for your comments, Trotter.

That IS the book I was referring to, and you've certainly given me some food for thought. I have to admit, I found some unsigned copies and was staggered to see how much the asking price was for those and when I found THIS one I very nearly needed some smelling salts!

It is, sadly, the credit crunch that's made me think about selling the book in the first place.

Thanks again for your help.

I remember buying my copy, in 1999 (I shan't say how much it cost). It caused a bit of a stir at the time; because up till then it hadn't been generally known that CT had signed the first 100. A friend of mine wrote to Rayner Unwin, calling it 'a previously unrecorded variant', and got a nice letter in reply, saying that I was not to worry; he vaguely remembered sending Christopher a batch of labels to sign, and he supposed that must have been it!

:)