Last week I acquired a first edition/printing of The Return of the King, with a fine condition and the dust jacket being even in VF condition after close inspection.

Yesterday I let an expert (Rene van Rossenberg, one of the major Tolkien collector's in the Netherlands, he owns a Tolkien store/museum) look at it and his conclusion was that it really is a first edition/printing, but the only thing that troubles him is the colour of the dust jacket. The jacket is made from an old and genuine material (smells 'old' too), but the colour is more light-grey than light-brown, altho the areas around the text are brown-faded.

The private collector I got the book from claims the dust jackets of all first editions (atleast LotR) were grey, while Rene van Rossenberg claims they were all brown.

So who tells the truth now? I hope someone can help me with this.
Thanks in advance.

Kind regards,
Sigi