I am new here. I have been a tolkien collector for over 20 years and have a wide collection of items. Sadly due to a change in personal circumstances, most of it is having to be re-homed.
I am keen to find good homes for the items, rather than just splash it all on ebay.
The first set of books to go is the History of Middle Earth deluxe sets from 2000 onwards. I have all three books in the slipcases and in great condition. I can email pictures if you want to see them.....if you are interested in the full set or even just one of them please email me direct. Otherwise they hit ebay at the end of the week. :(
I am new here. I have been a tolkien collector for over 20 years and have a wide collection of items. Sadly due to a change in personal circumstances, most of it is having to be re-homed.
I am keen to find good homes for the items, rather than just splash it all on ebay.
The first set of books to go is the History of Middle Earth deluxe sets from 2000 onwards. I have all three books in the slipcases and in great condition. I can email pictures if you want to see them.....if you are interested in the full set or even just one of them please email me direct. Otherwise they hit ebay at the end of the week. :(
Unfortunately I already have a set, but you should be able to get a fair price for them on eBay if no one on here pipes up. The first two are worth more than the third. For some reason the third volume seems quite common (I think they were possibly remaindered). Good luck.
Time for a Khamûl day-off list of historical prices, I feel...
Here are the prices I've noted for deluxe HoME volumes I've seen for sale, over the last couple of years, on eBay. I'm sure I've missed dozens of listings (especially Buy-it-now listings), but I'm pretty confident I've caught most auction listings with "Tolkien" in the listing description. Almost all of these copies (books & slipcases) were described as in "as new" condition (as with most deluxe HoME volumes for sale); some of them were still sealed. (I think I only noted one auction where this wasn't the case; with the slipcase being described as only "G".) Bracketed non-UK prices ("E" is euro btw) also reflect the location of some of the items; this may, or may not, have had an influence (shipping etc) on the final price(s) realised.
Full Set (three volumes): 2011 Nothing noted 2012 Nothing noted 2013 £780 "Best offer" accepted; full price unrecorded 2014 £815($1350) "Best offer" accepted; this also, it should be noted, inc. a matching LR + H (both 1st imp.); Buy-it-now was $1750(~£1055)
Full Set (three volumes): 2011 Nothing noted 2012 Nothing noted 2013 £780 "Best offer" accepted; full price unrecorded 2014 £815($1350) "Best offer" accepted; this also, it should be noted, inc. a matching LR + H (both 1st imp.); Buy-it-now was $1750(~£1055)
BH
These are some earlier numbers (from checking my purchase records), for what it is worth:
Shoulda paid less as it turns out. Volume 1 was quite hard to come by back then, though :) I'd say the price trend is downwards in real terms, and probably fairly static in purely numeric terms.
I figured I would update this with some current values. I just won a set of three HOME editions still sealed for the following prices Vol 1 - £266.00 Vol 2 - £252.22 Vol 3 - £203.26
You can see the prices have sort of stabilized for all three and likely I paid more for vol 2 and 3 after winning volume 1 for less than I thought.
I also won the LR and Hobbit from the same seller but lost the Silmarillion for WAY too much money. Oddly the seller has said he can get the Silmarillion from the winner, which to me implies the guy overpaid because he was revenge bidding me as he was underbidder of some sort on many of the other auctions. £175 for the Silmarillion is dealer pricing and it was sealed (which I understand is a risk given build issues with that book).
Edited by Stu on 2015-6-21 9:43:11 AM UTC Edited by Stu on 2015-6-21 10:05:35 AM UTC Edited by Stu on 2015-6-21 10:06:38 AM UTC
2015-6-21 2:48:16 AM UTC
Tapuvae wrote: I figured I would update this with some current values. I just won a set of three HOME editions still sealed for the following prices Vol 1 - £266.00 Vol 2 - £252.22 Vol 3 - £203.26
You can see the prices have sort of stabilized for all three and likely I paid more for vol 2 and 3 after winning volume 1 for less than I thought.
I also won the LR and Hobbit from the same seller but lost the Silmarillion for WAY too much money. Oddly the seller has said he can get the Silmarillion from the winner, which to me implies the guy overpaid because he was revenge bidding me as he was underbidder of some sort on many of the other auctions. £175 for the Silmarillion is dealer pricing and it was sealed (which I understand is a risk given build issues with that book).
Glad you got the books. Fair prices, I think, for shrink-wrapped copies (maybe a little on the high side).
The seller of the Silmarillion was quite possibly shill-bidding (and accidentally came out on top), which is why he says he can get the book from the winner. Highly suspicious, at any rate. That or the winner has pulled out. Either way, avoid!
[Edit: I notice that a**m a relatively high, but non-winning bidder (except for the Sil) seems to have bid on all those auctions. Quite possibly completely 100% legitimate - but has a definite sour whiff, especially with the oddness around that Sil purchase. I've never heard of anyone "revenge bidding", and it seems pretty durned unlikely to me. It is a pity eBay has made it pretty much impossible to positively identify shill bidding, so it always has to remain an unproven suspicion]
I think those prices, personally, were a little high (or a least higher than I'd be prepared to pay! ), particularly for Vol. III.
In regard to the 2002 Silmarillion; nobody bought this copy:
...listed twice. Description isn't the best, but the copy (other than the slight suspicion of a bit sticking up from the slipcase) looks decent. Careful questioning might have revealed a F/F copy here, for less than £100. This is just one example. I think acquiring a copy for double figures is achievable, given a little patience. £175 is too high.
EDIT: Incidentally, the copy cited above has now been relisted starting at £88; auction only for 24 hours. eBay Item #171832901248
Yes volume III was more than I was hoping to pay but I sort of became mentally committed once I won volume I for less than I anticipated and the small premium to have all three sealed seemed justified. The winner of the Silmarillion apparently does NOT want it. Based on the description of The Hobbit and LOTR they are cloth cases so I am hoping the LOTR is a first impression. I understand these cases fade and mar easily, which was preventing me from pulling the trigger on other ones on offer.
Regarding revenge bidding, I think its part of auction fever. You can imagine waiting 7 days for these to close and consistently losing out in the last 5 seconds to the same bidder. By the end of that you get a little offended by this and throw in a high bid try to win one. It really makes no sense to bid more for the Silmarillion than the Hobbit or LOTR volumes so I don't know what to make of it. I do know people have done this (bid for the heck of it).
I have major buyer's remorse of course, which I do after every auction. At this point if the winner of the Silmarillion wanted the other 5 I would let him take them because man the conversion to USD really hurts ;)
Tapuvae wrote: Regarding revenge bidding, I think its part of auction fever. You can imagine waiting 7 days for these to close and consistently losing out in the last 5 seconds to the same bidder. By the end of that you get a little offended by this and throw in a high bid try to win one. It really makes no sense to bid more for the Silmarillion than the Hobbit or LOTR volumes so I don't know what to make of it. I do know people have done this (bid for the heck of it).
I have major buyer's remorse of course, which I do after every auction. At this point if the winner of the Silmarillion wanted the other 5 I would let him take them because man the conversion to USD really hurts ;)
All I can say is, that in 12 years or so of eBaying books, it isn't something I have ever noticed. I have definitely noticed lots of probable shill bidding, bid shielding, etc. I personally would say that about 10% of the auctions that I monitor closely look to have seller irregularities.
My personal recommendation is (a) use an auction sniper, (b) choose the price the book is worth to you and set that in the sniper (and not a penny more!). Then DO NOT look at the auction until it is finished. As soon as you get into the to-and-fro of bidding against someone else, you will pay too much, and - very importantly - you leave yourself open to exploitation by sellers that employ shill-bidding tactics. This also goes for putting a max (proxy) bid directly into eBay (rather than using a sniper)- very easy for the seller (or another buyer) to just chip away at you to find out what your max is.
auctions via eBay are fundamentally broken at this point, but you can still do well, so long as you know it is broken, and employ workarounds to minimise the risk.
Remember, there are plenty of these books in circulation, and a lot less people that actually want them than you might think. I personally believe that - with the exception of very rare and signed items - prices are falling reasonably steadily. Unless you are in a money-no-object situation, just take your time. You won't end up missing out. :) Save over-paying for the genuinely rare stuff if you can!
), particularly for Vol. III.
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