The Thomas Nelson Premier Collection NKJV Large Print Thinline Reference Bible Limited Edition

Lately it seems that I’ve really become attracted to blue Bibles. It wasn’t a conscious decision, it just seemed to happen. Blue has always been one of my favorite colors so I suppose it would make sense that I like blue Bibles. When Thomas Nelson released a limited edition Premier Collection NKJV in blue goatskin, I knew I wanted to get a copy. I finally got my hands on one and I’m pleased to bring you a review of the Limited Edition Premier Collection NKJV Large Print Thinline Reference Bible in blue goatskin.

I’ll start off by saying that this Bible was much nicer than I could have imagined and than the pictures online had led me to believe. The design choices Thomas Nelson made with this Bible are truly spectacular. It’s a blue—almost navy—goatskin that looks excellent. The Bible is perimeter stitched. It has three satin bookmarks that are navy, red, and navy from top to bottom. The page edges are a red under gold art gilt. These colors just compliment each other so nicely. There are navy head and tail bands.

The spine has five raised ribs. Stamped in gold are the words, "HOLY BIBLE", "New King James Version", and "Thomas Nelson".

Inside, there’s a gold perimeter gilt line. The Bible is edge-lined. The inside liner seems to be a navy calfskin. It also has navy end sheets and a very simple presentation page.

The paper is a 36 gsm premium European Bible paper. It is white and quite opaque. There is almost no ghosting (ghosting always looks worse in pictures). The text is line-matched to further eliminate any show through.

The layout is a double column paragraph setting. Page headings, section headings, chapter numbers, and verse reference locations are all printed in a dark red accent color. The font is the Thomas Nelson NKJV Comfort Print typeface. I like all of Thomas Nelson’s Comfort Print fonts, but they claim this is an 11-point print size and I would more so judge it to be a 10. The tricky thing is that certain fonts can appear bigger or smaller even if they claim to be the same size as others. I’m sure that this is an 11 in the NKJV comfort print, but it certainly reads smaller than Schuyler’s 11-point font.

Words of Christ are in red. I tend to favor an all black text, but based on what I can tell, this is a nice dark red and is printed evenly. One critique I have and noticed as I examined these sections is that in the red text, the verse numbers are printed in black and almost on top of the text in some verses. This is distracting and doesn’t quite look as clean as you would hope for a premium limited edition.

The Bible features an extensive cross-reference system and a robust concordance. There are also eight full color maps in the back on glossy card stock.

Top - Large Print Thinline
Bottom - NKJV Premier Collection Verse-by-Verse Center Column Reference

In conclusion, this is a really nice Bible and I give Thomas Nelson a lot of credit for doing a premium edition outside of the usual black and brown. I think more large publishers should consider doing some limited runs of other colors. As I said at the beginning, this Bible is designed beautifully and is a great edition that I think anyone would be proud to own.

You can pick up your copy of the Limited Edition Premier Collection NKJV Large Print Thinline at Amazon (affiliate).

Disclaimer: I received a complimentary copy of this Bible from Thomas Nelson in exchange for a fair and honest review.