Collectors Edition of "Maker of Middle Earth" available to order (again)

I'm still not getting a hold of what the content of this actually is; other than all the facsimile material what are the contents?

Book is physically huge too.

BH

Book contents are described somewhat on the standard edition blurb.

https://www.bodleianshop.co.uk/tolkien-maker-of-middle-earth.html

I'm still intending to go with the £40 version myself. The collectors edition looks nice enough, but not £255 nicer than standard. The signature is not something that interests me (no disrespect to Priscilla).

Looks pretty; but not worth £295 imo.

I tend to get bitter when things are overpriced for the sake of making money.

The latest FOTR Complete Recordings on vinyl costs just about £75. It is also sumptuous and limited edition. Combined with TTT and ROTK the total should be easily about £225.

I realize I’m comparing apples and oranges, but really, this book can’t be worth alll that much if the only difference in *content* (the thing that really matters!) is the 7 facsimiles.

I'm on vacation right now, so I will post more detail later, but the way I look at it is -

• The book itself
  
• finer quality high end Italian binding
  
• special endpapers reproducing Tolkien’s drawing of the Elvenking’s Gate
  
• custom presentation box
  
• seven facimiles printed on fine Italian paper
  
• custom-made envelope bearing Tolkien’s cipher
  
• six-page illustrated guide describing and interpreting each facsimile item
  
• signed by Priscilla Tolkien
  

So at about £250 for the extras on top of the standard book, even if you only count the 7 facsimiles (which are high quality reproductions suitable for framing - some like the map never to be available anywhere else ever), that's £35 per piece of art. I certainly would pay that much for a piece of art from a modern Tolkien inspired artist!

I kept my original order too, so I get the cheaper price.

Oh, and one other thing - all profits go to support the Library conservation efforts, so I feel much better about this. "Making money" means something slightly different in this case.

Urulöké wrote:
I'm on vacation right now, so I will post more detail later, but the way I look at it is -

• The book itself
  
• finer quality high end Italian binding
  
• special endpapers reproducing Tolkien’s drawing of the Elvenking’s Gate
  
• custom presentation box
  
• seven facimiles printed on fine Italian paper
  
• custom-made envelope bearing Tolkien’s cipher
  
• six-page illustrated guide describing and interpreting each facsimile item
  
• signed by Priscilla Tolkien
  

So at about £250 for the extras on top of the standard book, even if you only count the 7 facsimiles (which are high quality reproductions suitable for framing - some like the map never to be available anywhere else ever), that's £35 per piece of art. I certainly would pay that much for a piece of art from a modern Tolkien inspired artist!

I kept my original order too, so I get the cheaper price.

I'm really not sold on this facsimiles being worth £35 (or even £25 a piece to allow £70 for the box and improved binding). At the end of the day they are just prints onto presumably decent paper.

Things like "special endpapers" and a cardboard carton for the facsimiles are pretty flimsy as extras.

From the pictures, it really looks quite nice, and at £35 from Amazon, the standard edition of the book is an absolute no-brainer (although I probably won't order from Amazon as they will destroy it in the post). I wish I could personally see the value in the collectors edition, but I'm just not seeing it at present.

FWIW, anyone who had an original order and cancelled it can get the original £265 price by ordering over the phone.

I'm happy to be convinced I am wrong.

I don't think they will sell 675 copies at this price and will discount the price at some point, probably when the exhibition has finished.

The book looks nice, the presentation box is stylish and the sig will be of interest to some but I don't see the price or the value in there.

What puts me off is the facsimile items. They are pretty ordinary, all nice, but aside from the rear of pages which the description plays on there is not much new, I guess the map can be described as new but s many images were flying around of it that I printed a very decent quality A3.

In this deluxe limited release I would expect something that makes each of us need this box, from all the items they could pick to include we have the Hobbit cover that has been reproduced many times, Orthanc which is well documented, again with Shelob and the Father Christmas letters could be removed from a book edition and framed easily to look fairly manuscript-like.

"reproduced for the first time on both sides" feels a little like buying a used school table and the seller smiling and pointing out that the original chewing gum is included on the underside.

It feels like the choices were made from what was already on hand rather than offer fans something truly new.

Stu, the original price was £275; or at least, as Urulöké alludes to, that's the we would like to offer you the opportunity to re-order at the lower price as a gesture of goodwill-price I've been offered as someone who cancelled their original order. And postage looks like £20, so works out as £295 to your door anyway.

Not convinced.

BH