User:Hyarion/Collection

From Tolkien Gateway

Welcome to my personal Tolkien museum, shrine, collection, whatever you would like to call it. Feel free to click on any image to see an enlarged image.


Newspaper article

We'll start with one of my favorite pieces in my collection pictured at the left. A few years back, prior to the release of The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King there was an article in the local newspaper asking The Lord of the Rings fans to contact them so they could determine who was the "Geekiest Rings Geek" and the winner would get an article published about them. I entered a few pages of poorly worded facts about how geeky I was and almost forgot about it until I got an email saying I had won. To the right is an image of the article which was published, a fairly large one I might add. I still need to scan the darn thing so you guys can read it. Unfortunately when the newspaper photographers came over to take some shots of my collection...it was fairly lacking, I've expanded it a bit but I am still no where near where I would like to be nor will I ever be, now onto the rest of my collection.

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On the left is just a basic boring shot of my dresser with The Dark Lord Sauron polystone statue standing atop it. On the right you'll see a couple Sideshow Weta and Amazon boxes which have yet to be tossed.


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Here's a better shot of the same location a bit higher. There's Sauron again and you can now see my Witchking Lithograph which I received from The Lord of the Rings Fan Club. Unfortunately it seems to continue to slip down the cheap frame I purchased for it. On the right is a single Orc Medallion which I found for free in one of my packages courtesy of Sideshow Weta. It's the only Medallion I currently have but I would love to get the full collection.


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On the left you can see a bit more to the left of the last shot I took. That corner is really my true Tolkien shrine. That big brown box still sitting there after months is from my Sauron statue. Beneath it is a 1/4 Scale Luke Skywalker Exclusive which I won thanks to Sideshow Weta during San Diego Comic-con. I've been meaning to sell this item so if you're interested, feel free to shoot me an email. I'll delve into the rest of the items more as we check out the close-ups.

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Here's a good overview shot of my computer workstation and some surrounding items. This is where I truly spend most of my life, heh. Not really on the Tolkien topic but I must say, I love my computer, I got it as a high school graduation present about a year and a half ago and it hasn't failed yet and is still fairly powerful. 3ghz processor, 1gig of ram, x800 256mb video card, etc. Now back to Tolkien, you can see the large Gollum poster hanging in the corner, not one of my favorite pieces, I really should get something from John Howe or Alan Lee to hang there, something a bit less Peter Jackson and more purist Tolkien, oh well.

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Ah on the left you can see some of my favorite posters. They aren't technically Tolkien, but Warcraft 3 is close enough. They came in my Warcraft 3 Collector's Edition box and I really love the frames I found for them, sleek black and very thick and heavy. They seem to fit quite well above my closet as well. Now only if I actually still played Warcraft 3, heh.

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On the right you'll find the largest item in my collection, Sauron which was pictured earlier as well. This is just one massive statue weighing in at 30 pounds and costing a massive 300 bucks. It's a great polystone to dollar ratio compared to most of Sideshow Weta's pieces and probably one of the best retail price buys out there. Unfortunately seeing as the painting is done in China you're not going to get great quality and it will change from piece to piece but I'll leave that discussion for my future review of this piece. I still have yet to find a proper place for him, although he is at the center of attention in the front there; it was really the only place that I felt could withstand his weight and wouldn't get bumped easily.

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The newest piece in my collection is featured at the left, Peter Jackson as a Corsair. I won this guy during Sideshow Weta's Spooktacular chat event. He's a very cool piece and one of the last in the line, albeit a bit small for the $125 price tag. I think an even cooler statue would have been PJ sitting in his director's chair with his shorts on, that would have rocked.

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Pictured at the right is some of my collection of The Lord of the Rings books. The paperback set on the right were my very first ones and the most read. Those two white hardback and slipcased ones I picked up this summer in a used Seattle bookstore for about 10 bucks, not the best price but they were in pretty good condition. To the left is a 1st edition of The Silmarillion but it doesn't have the slipcase. Since The Silmarillion was so widely produced even in the first printing its worth relatively little compared to maybe The Hobbit first edition. At the far left of the books is Houghton Mifflin's 50th Anniversary Edition of The Lord of the Rings. I received this for my birthday or Christmas last year and it really is an amazing book, still selling for around $50 with gold gilded edges and just high quality all around, I would certainly recommend it.

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Here on the left we have another smaller shelf of Tolkien related books. The red thing pictured at the right is a pack of Top Trumps card I won from Tolkiensque a few months back. In the very back you can barely see is a photograph my family took when they went to China of The Return of the King poster. Moving along to the left we have two copies of Smith of Wootton Major and Farmer Giles of Ham. I picked up both of these earlier this year, I believe in Seattle as well, they aren't worth anything but I'm always willing to add some inexpensive pieces to my collection. To the left of those we have The Shaping of Middle-earth and another copy of The Silmarillion. I'm unsure when I picked up these editions but I believe I got them a couple years ago for Christmas. Then in the left corner we have Bored of the Rings and The Hobbit which was actually my mothers and the first edition I read. Unfortunately I still have yet to make it through Bored of the Rings.

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Back to the right we have a couple statues and one of my favorite birthday cards. The front of the card states "Birthday wishes from Gandalf" and on the inside it reads "You actually got kind of excited didn't you? (god what a geek)" and on the back it says "get a life." My family thought that was too close to home not to get me. Also pictured is one of the pair of Argonath statues found in Peter Jackson's The Fellowship of the Ring Collector's Edition. Funny enough this was the last of the DVD collector's editions I purchased but the bookends are quite nice. To the left of the bookend is an 8" tall pewter Legolas statue produced by NECA. NECA may not be known for their quality like Sideshow Weta but the NECA statues I've felt were my best buys, this Legolas one is merely some 20 odd bucks new which is amazing considering most 2" tall pewter Tolkien statues are more than that.

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Ah more books. If I had to concentrate on one specific Tolkien field it would be the books because lets face it, those are the purist form of Tolkien available. Any statues or movies or art are not his interpretations but the artists, his books are from the Professor's mind and no one else's. On the far right is The Languages of Tolkien's Middle-earth. It's a great pocket book to some quick Quenya or Sindarin vocabulary and it contains some brief information and details on all of the Professor's languages. To the left of that is The Complete Guide to Middle-earth which is one of the more complete Tolkien encyclopedias , it contains a brief sentence or two of most of the characters, places, etc, in Middle-earth. Moving on we have Unfinished Tales of Numenor and Middle-earth and The Book of Lost Tales. Unfinished Tales is a great book and I recommend it to anyone even if The Silmarillion wasn't your thing, it's quite a bit easier to read. Lost Tales is part of The History of Middle-earth collection which unfortunately I have yet to purchase because the sets are just so expensive and to buy all 12 books individually is even more expensive. Farther on the left is The Letters of J.R.R. Tolkien and another edition of The Hobbit. The Letters contain a ton of information regarding Tolkien and a great look into his past, it works well paired with a Biography of him. This edition of The Hobbit is also exquisite, taking off from the style of the 1st edition.

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At the right is the second of the pair of Argonath environments produced by Sideshow Weta as well as NECA's 8" pewter Aragorn statue. It goes great with the Legolas statue and keep in mind there are 24" versions of these, although it will cost you an arm and a leg, I think they weigh around 100 pounds.

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Ah Gandalf, my first Sideshow Weta statue that I purchased. I believe it stands around 12.5" tall and costs about $125 retail. Not the best price for an item that was not limited edition and there are probably ten thousand of things guys but I got my Orc Medallion free with the purchase of him, so that was cool. I don't really like the fact that his hang and staff just kind of slip into his arm, I'd prefer a solid statue but I suppose this is better than the alternative of a broken statue during shipping.

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Back to the right are a few more pieces in my collection. A Sméagol statue which came with The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers Collector's Edition. A very cool piece, especially when you get it bundled with the Extended Edition of The Two Towers and the Gollum DVD for a fairly low price. To the right of Smeagol is my fairly new 1/5th scale of the Narsil statue that I purchased earlier this year. I just couldn't resist, these things were selling for around $20 because they had produced so many of them so I had to get my hands on one. The [[Crown of King Elessar] awkwardly positioned in the front I just received a few weeks ago free from Sideshow Weta, I won it during Fantacular. It's fairly small but a great price when you get it for free.

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The shot on the left shows more of that same shelf with some more items. On the right is an Éomer bust which I've only forgotten where I won him from, but he is a very cool item produced by Sideshow Weta as well. To the left of him is the statue of Minas Tirith found in The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King Collector's Edition set. I thought the fact that Sideshow Weta was turning it into a jewelry box by allowing people to lift the top off would decrease the quality factor but they did a nice job pulling it off. Continuing to the left are two Game Boy Advance games, not the best games in the world but great when you're on a long trip. To the left of those is The Lord of the Rings Trilogy Soundtrack which I thought was a smart move, waiting until all three soundtracks were released in a set, until I realized they would be releasing these new even 'better' recordings (see The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring - The Complete Recordings).


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Jumping back over to the image on the right you can see the remaining items on that shelf. Unfortunately I seem to have cut off Sideshow Weta's Smeagol bust, I won him at San Diego Comic-Con last year and he is a very cool. On the far right is the trilogy soundtrack again, and then there is a few random CDs including: The Battle for Middle-earth PC game and Hobbit music CD. You can also see a pin that says "Frodo Lives", my sister found this laying around in a book store and when asked how much it was the sales person stated she could just take it, keep in mind this is not one of the original "Frodo Lives" pins from decades ago but a newer copycat. Nudged into those DVDs is a copy of The Return of the King my family picked up in China just after it was released in theaters, so it's probably illegal and I probably shouldn't even be mentioning it, heh. I won't go through them all individually but there is also The Lord of the Rings Extended Editions and regular editions, some GameCube games, a National Geographic DVD, a Howard Shore DVD, and another illegal dvd, this one of The Two Towers which a friend burned for me.

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Continuing on the left is some more very cool items. In the very back is a framed autograph from Elijah Wood personally to me, my cousin ran into him in an airport and was kind enough to get an autograph for me. On the right is another NECA solid pewter statue, the Balrog. With a 16" wingspan and costing only around $80 this guy was a bargain, I love him. To the left you can also see some random United Cutlery miniature swords which I got on sale.

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Looking over to the image on the right you'll see some more miscellaneous items. A bit more of the miniature swords as well as some CDs and a few other items. Unfortunately most of the CDs are not Tolkien related but you can see a small newspaper clipping in that box, it wasn't about anything special, I had decided to start cutting out newspaper articles relating to Tolkien, that clipping is the first and last so you can see how long that kept my attention, heh. On top of this little cabinet is a little Legolas on Arod toy I got for Christmas a few years back. Below that inside the cabinet doors is a little Frodo Christmas Tree ornament. Oh and on the top right of the cabinet, that's one of my speakers in my 5.1 surround sound setup, the coolest thing is when it will flash LED lights with the beat of the music. Great for watching The Lord of the Rings movies with.

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On the left is just a general farther back shot of that corner. Oh I forgot to mention that tin on the top shelf is a puzzle and behind it are the three Collector's Edition boxes that I've yet to throw away.

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Over on the right is a shot of pretty much nothing Tolkien related but I thought it would be nice to give you guys a shot of where I spend most of my life, right there at that computer. Unfortunately my cpu tower is facing the wrong way, it has a bunch of LED colored fans and cold cathode ray tubes that you can see on the other side but my room layout just didn't work with the computer on the other room.



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Here's a shot of two posters from The Lord of the Rings (film series), nothing special, they just happen to be two of the posters I received and got framed. All my cool posters, the ones by Alan Lee, John Howe, Ted Nasmith etc are in my closet, I've got about 26 of them but with no money to get them framed I'm stuck. Once I get all those framed and mounted this room will look awesome.

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On the right is an overview shot of my cluttered closet with boxes, magazines, books, and random things that I didn't display in my room. I'll go more into detail on the items as I show you some closer up shots.



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As you can tell my closet is fairly packed, those boxes were like a puzzle getting them all into there but I certainly can't throw them away! On the shelf above those are some PC Gamer magazines and on the left is a small collection of Computer and school related books.


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The shot on the right contains some more miscellaneous books and magazines. But on the left we have some of my Tolkien books that would not fit on the previously showcased shelves. One of these in particular is The Return of the King signed by Alan Lee which I picked up in Seattle for like 20 bucks, a great value if you ask me, it was in mint condition too. There are also some of my Tolkien Society issues in there somewhere.


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Here's a shot of the top shelf with relatively nothing Tolkien related save the Pringles can that I've had for a few years that have a Lord of the Rings theme on them. The rest of the items are just PC games and a few random items.

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On the left is another overview image of that side of my room. Not much to say about it, those blinds sure look boring I need to paint something on them, black blinds with a tree of Gondor painted white on them would look awesome.



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On the left is a shot of the other corner of my room which still focuses on my past Basketball obsession. At the right of the image is a shirt that says "I went to Middle-earth and all I got was this crummy ring." There's also the life size cardboard standee of Aragorn which I'm ashamed to admit I have. Something just doesn't say heterosexual like a 19 year old male having a life size standup of Viggo right next to his bed...



Wow, I'll be surprised if anyone actually reads that entire thing. As you can see my collection is getting there but there is still a ton of items I need but luckily I've got quite a bit of time to catch up. I already forgot to take pictures of my cupboards which have quite a bit more Tolkien memorabilia. I'll update the page soon with those as well as any new items I get. You can also add your comments about this article on the discussion page


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