Ballantine Tolkien mural in flooded Grand Forks home

[Extollager]

Just now, watching coverage on WDAY regarding the importance of buying insurance, so as to be prepared for spring floods when the snowpack melts, I spotted the dear old Barbara Remington "mural" poster from circa 1970. Though I never had one, as I recall these sold for about $5 at the time. I would dearly like to have one for our living room, but I don't suppose I will ever come across an affordable one.

This family lost much more than a vintage Tolkien poster, and I sympathize. They never thought they needed flood insurance; supposedly they were not on the flood plain. (No, we don't have flood insurance. I'm confident the house is safe. However, we do have a separate garage and outbuildings that often do get meltwater on the concrete floor. I imagine we will once again in a few months. Last year I bought a vacuum device for sucking up such water.

Now here's a strange coincidence. I haven't seen an actual copy of the mural poster since, perhaps, the 1970s, except once. That once was approximately 20 years ago, and in Grand Forks. Some months after their horrible flood of 1997, I was walking around downtown near the river. Looking through the window of a store that had been flooded, I saw the mural on the wall. Later, I wished I'd taken note of what the store was (I think it was a store, not an apartment) and made an offer. I'm wondering if the poster in the video image is the same one -- if the householder saw that same poster and did make an offer. I might actually be able to find out the story behind the poster.

 

[Extollager]

I did find out a bit more about the mural poster. It was bought for $6.95 in 1975 (sigh). It came through the flood with only minor damage, since the owner had had it protected by plastic.

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I have it in storage somewhere. I bought it around the time it first began appearing in stores.

 

[Alex The G and T]

My first copies of LOTR were the box set PB's with those covers; published in the late '60's.

I have no idea what became of them. Lent 'em out and never got 'em back, I suppose; though I'd already read 'em five or six times.

Never saw the mural, though.

 

[Extollager]

Correction: price for the "mural" was $5.95.