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Just to clarify: technically there are already three 'versions' or editions, the 1st (1937), 2nd (1951) and 3rd (1966), in the last of which Tolkien cleaned up some passages, mostly to integrate better with The Lord of the Rings. To get really geeky, each publisher of the 3rd Edition used a slightly different text (finally resolved by Doug Anderson).
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Yes, you're definitely right. I am kind of a nut about collecting Hobbits (books...not live ones) When I started collecting Tolkien books, I was trying to get "everything" Tolkien wrote, but that proved impossible as the different editions and reprints exploded. More recently, I've focused on the different editions and translations of The Hobbit. There is a difference between #2 and #3 but I don't think of it in the same way as the major difference in the storyline between #1 and #2, or the extra material in UT.
There's some really great art out there in Hobbit translations....artists that most English-speaking readers are less familiar with...which makes these fun to collect.
Davem -- And I thought I was the only one counting the days till these volumes came out. They've been delayed so many times....for years and years....even more than Hammond's guides. It will be interesting to see what JR does. There's another web group he posts on and I've kind of quietly watched the progress of the book that way.
The other book I am really waiting on is this: J.R.R. Tolkien: Interviews, Reminiscences, and Other Essays (Hardcover)
by Douglas A. Anderson (Author), Marjorie J. Burns. It's been promised several times but still doesn't have a publication date.
It's a very different type of book but this description sounds interesting:
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Compiled by noted Tolkien scholars Douglas A. Anderson and Marjorie J. Burns, this book provides an invaluable insight into Tolkien's thought through interviews, personal reminiscences, and remembrances collected nowhere else.
Tolkien gave some twenty interviews in his lifetime. In this collection is the unedited transcript of an interview for the BBC, giving the only surviving impression of what it was like to converse with Tolkien.
Firsthand impressions ranging from those of the lexicographer of the Oxford English Dictionary to those of friends such as Robert Murray, Norman Power, Donald Swann, the science fiction writer, L. Sprague de Camp, and Tolkien's eldest son, Michael, the reminiscences are lively and loving testimonials.
Most of the essays here were written by people who knew Tolkien and explore other aspects of his life: Christopher Tolkien on the making of The Silmarillion, Priscilla Tolkien on his art, Rayner Unwin on publishing Tolkien, and more.
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Oldest son Michael??? Hmm..