The main problem is that some people have discovered how valuable a Tolkien signature is and also that there is enough demand for them as well. So on ebay there has been a steady flow of fake Tolkien letters, signed books and even forged Tolkien related items (like Tolkien's typewriter, fake drawings, self portraits,…). The market has literary been flooded with items and while a group of Tolkien collectors try to warn buyers, try to get auctions pulled and even went so far as to buy the items to be able to leave negative feedback, ebay remains deaf to their comments and actions. The result is that fake Tolkien signatures, letters and signed books keep being offered for sale on ebay on a weekly basis.

This is of course a fake item and the forgery is in all respect a very bad one.The first problem is the typical blue ink that keeps coming back, and is now closely linked with forged signatures... since many of the forgeries of Tolkien's autograph have all been written in this type of blue ink.

Next to the obvious mistakes in the signature itself, as well as in the stroke under it, Tolkien (even when he was signing quickly) would have made such a mess on a page.

Another alarm bell would have just why Tolkien would sign a C.S. Lewis book, on the title page - a book most people suspect he probably even did not like at all. If for example Tolkien would have bought the book for himself he would have signed it on the front fly leave and for sure not with his flowing signature. If it was a present he would not have signed it on the title page either.

Another typical thing with forgeries is that most of the time the books are in a dirty condition. It seems that sometimes they want to make the books look old or they can only afford to buy cheap copies (to be able to make maximum profits).

First of all I don't like type signed letters in general. I avoid them even when there is a genuine signature on it. If you want to invest your money in letters I can only advise you to go for handwritten ones.

As for this horrible thing, it shows many problems. First of all the blue ink signature. Once again the autographs shows many flaws in style, flow and is not at all Tolkien's. The letter is dated 1966 and this is also clearly not a 1966 signature either. But there are other things that are visible why we can tell this is a forgery.

The great mass of type signed letters that are fake are all dirty and try to somehow show they are aged. The aging is done really bad, like someone has been playing with coffee, etc - very poorly done. And by the way, try to find any genuine Tolkien letter that looks aged like this and you will not find even one!

The letter in itself is also wrong because of several reasons. Tolkien would never write a text like this, the white spacing and layout is wrong. The typewriter used is wrong and the words used are so not-Tolkien.

This is another forgery that makes me angry and should be destroyed at the earliest occasion possible. Once again we see the typical blue ink fake Tolkien signature. Once more it uses a typewriter that is not Tolkien's. Once again we see the creator used some kind of aging method that looks very unnatural. There is not header, letter opening and address, not date, the text has no margin on the right and when you read the letter you can see the definitive proof this is a poor fake. Tolkien would for example never write "Moon lather"... a misspelling we have seen before in another fake Tolkien letter.

By the way the way the paper was cut on the top has also been seen several times in other letters from the same creator. Once again this letter came with a nonsense provenance story as well.

I hope this letter somehow shows why the selling of fake Tolkien items on ebay should be stopped at all costs.

Another fake signature, in a book we all would have loved Tolkien had signed it. The ebay auction told the following:"The is no COA with this signature but it is almost certainly by Tolkien - the ink is contemporary and has some age-fading, so this was presumably signed at the time of publication of the book (1933) when Tolkien wasn't yet famous - I believe it would have been part of Tolkien's personal library and possibly used for research purposes in writing about Middle Earth in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. I have shown the signature to two of the UKs highly-respected bookshops to see what they thought and both believe it to be genuine, as I do.

I bought the book from a dealer who in turn bought it from an old lady who lived in the village of Hinton Martell, Dorset. The book had apparently been stored in a trunk along with other books in her barn for around 50 years. It had previously belonged to a member of her family, Professor Parry (Cambridge) who had taught music."

Of course we asked for more info and in total managed to receive several versions of the provenance. To make a long story short... there was a Professor Parry in Cambridge, but could never have had contact with Tolkien. This is for sure not a 1933 signature and while it looks Tolkien's any 'specialist' would say it is not genuine (even from a picture). The book is once again a mess and not like books from Tolkien's personal library in nice shape and does not show a typical autograph that we find in books from J.R.R. Tolkien's working library.

In general... why do people who forge signatures always try to find a book that somehow links to Tolkien. Here it is the "Elves & Fairies," sometimes it is C.S. Lewis or other colleagues... when it looks to good to be true, well... 90% of the time that is indeed the case!

Ok, if this would be the real deal... how much would this be worth? In the contrary this item is absolutely worthless. It would be worth more if the seller would just have signed it himself! How low can a person go to make Tolkien fans believe they can buy a self-portrait from their beloved author.

So how can we tell this is a fake? Maybe because the seller of this item has managed to sell at least three similar self-portraits in the past year. Next to that the signature just looks horribly wrong. The description of the item I don't even dare to reproduce here, but once again the ebay seller made a good amount of money...

It was a private auction, so we could not warn the bidders. The bidders could not search the sellers history from withing the listing and who knows the seller was pushing up the price by bidding against the final buyer and make the item look more credible. Items like these make me want to get into contact with Interpol!

Just to end this article - let me show you how crazy it can get on ebay.

Don't know if this seller is serious at all, but the auction starts at 0,99 USD. His description then nearly copies the complete wikipedia page about Tolkien to make him look like a specialist on anything Tolkien.

But at the bottom adds the following line:"The work is not supplied with certificate of authenticity and guarantee (as has never been subject to assessment, evaluation expertise) and then, having regard to the recognition and similarity to the stykle of the author, is proposed as a copy of copyright, falsecopyright, in the manner of the author, under Article 8 of the Law of 20 November 1971, n.1062 (Official Gazette No. 318 on December 17)"

Well, as far as I am concerned, the selling of forged items is illegal and faking someone's signature is not allowed either. Telling us about some laws no-one has heard of and citing from wikipedia does not make it suddenly look like a genuine item either. This item was of course never seen by any expert and will never ever receive a certificate of authenticity since it is a fake, and you can see this even with your eyes closed.

I'm so sorry to have to say that this is a fine display of the reality. Anything with the name Tolkien on it is valuable and people with the wrong intentions like to abuse the name Tolkien to make profit. It is sad and a pity Tolkien friends and fans spend their money on worthless items like these. I hope examples like this somehow help to avoid buying fake items online.