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Originally Posted by Bęthberry
What I find infinitely fascinating about the article is that there apparently is a wealthy collector of Tolkien manuscripts who has decided to store his collection on his own private property rather than loan them to an academic institution, as is the general trend of such things these days in NA.
He--or she--isn't sharing.
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I have a friend in the Tolkien Society who owns virtually everything Tolkien ever published (including the rare early stuff like Songs for the Philologists), along with some of the books from his library, though he isn't 'wealthy'. I think his intention is to donate them to the Tolkien Society library when he dies - though he may simply arrange for some to go to second hand bookshops - which is where he got many of the items himself.
Collecting such things isn't something I've gone in for, though its not difficult (or that expensive apparently) to get hold of stuff if you know where to look. I wonder what the 'manuscripts' actually consist of? As far as I'm aware CT owns all the M-e stuff apart from the stuff he sold to Marquette.
Some Tolkien 'artifacts' are not as valuable as people think though. As Ive noted elsewhere I saw a book once owned by Michael Tolkien on ebay for Ł300, whereas I picked up the six volume set of Gibbon Tolkien gave to Michael for Ł100 just last year & I know the dealer had quite a few other books of Michael's as he bought his entire library, so if anyone wants to own something with a (tenuous) Tolkien link it won't break the bank. And you can be a bit cunning - people reckon a 'First Edition' of LotR will break the bank but apparently the (pirated) Ace Books edition can be picked up quite cheaply if you just want the first ed. text.
It would be interesting to know whether the collection is worth the money spent on housing it....