A Good Way to Spend Forty Thousand Pounds

So, thanks to Mike Foster (thanks Mike), I learned today that an original Tolkien drawing, of his Aunt Jane's farm where he wrote the first poem in his legendarium (about Earendil, in 1914), is currently being auctioned off by Sotheby's on behalf of his brother Hilary's heirs.

Here's the link:

http://www.sothebys.com/app/live/lot/LotDetail.jsp?lot_id=159566775

Quite a nice piece, but given the current state of the exchange rate (the average estimated going price of 40k pounds equals about 67k dollars right about now), and the general rotten state of the economy, I don't think they'll get too many bidders from over here, where most of the Tolkien collectors are. On the other hand, I just read today that England's the one industrialized country whose recovery from the Depression is even slower than ours, so who knows?

Seeing this does give rise to fantasies though of entering into a Tolkien Tontine, where the picture gets passed around every month and the last surviving member gives it to one of the major Tolkien collections, either Marquette or the Wade.

--John R.