Collecting Tolkien Stamps

This is the next in the series of articles giving an overview of a specific Tolkien Collecting area. It is not a completest list of everything to do with the area (see the Visual Collecting Guides for that), but an introduction to the area to give people an idea of what the area is about.

Size of the Area
Stamps is a relatively small Tolkien area to collect, there are only 11 series within it, with approximately 21 actual stamp sets, however each of these sets does have quite a lot of different items available which makes this area a bit bigger than you would expect.

Overview, History and Scope
One of the first things to establish within any area is the scope of that area. This is not meant to specifically set boundaries to any individual collection, but purely to define the scope of what is covered within this article and, to a lesser extent, what I consider that area includes.

GB Centenary - these are the earlist Tolkien stamps, a Prestige stamp book produced by the British Royal Mail to celebrate Tolkien’s Centenary In 1992. Apart from the book, there are only first day covers of these.

GB Magical Worlds - this is a single stamp produced by the British Royal Mail as part of the Magical Worlds commemorative set. There are first day covers, presentation pack and postcards of these. Royal Mail Site.

GB 50th Anniversary - this is a British Royal Mail set commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Lord of the Rings. There are first day covers, presentation pack and postcards of these. Royal Mail Site.

NZ Lord of the Rings Movies - these are the largest series of stamps, three sets produced by New Zealand Post to commemorate each of the three Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies and a 20th Anniversary set. There are first day covers, presentations Packs, maxi cards, self adhesive, miniature sheets and various special collections. New Zealand Post Site.

            

NZ Hobbit Movies - these are another large series of stamps, three sets produced by New Zealand Post to commemorate each of the three Peter Jackson Hobbit movies. There are first day covers, presentations Packs, maxi cards, self adhesive, miniature sheets and various special collections. New Zealand Post Site.

         

NZ Home of Middle Earth - a set of stamps produced by New Zealand Post to commemorate the Peter Jackson movie locations. There are first day covers, presentations Packs, maxi cards, self adhesive and miniature sheets.

IOM Return of the King - a set of stamps produced by Isle of Man to commemorate the Peter Jackson Return of the King movie. There are first day covers, presentations Packs, maxi cards, self adhesive and miniature sheets.

    

Australia Return of the Kings - a set of stamps produced by Australia to commemorate the Peter Jackson Return of the King movie. This is only a presentation sheet, the actual stamp is only a generic definitive one.

Australia Literary Legends - this is a set of stamps produced by Australia as part of the Literary Legands commemorative series. These are local post only, not issued by a country wide authority.

Kyrgyzstan Great Personalities - this is a single stamp produced by Kyrgyzstan as part of the Great Personalities commemorative set. There are first day covers of these.

Other Foreign - these are one off sets produced by various obscure countries to commemorate the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings movies. I am not sure if these were official postage stamps or just collectors items. I am aware of approximately 10 of these, stamps only.

                

However there is more to stamps than just mint and used versions.

Each set can have a Presentation Pack. This is a mint set of the stamps in a presentation packaging. Sometimes the pack also contains other items such as first day covers and maxi-cards.

    

A set can also come on a first day cover. This is a set of the stamps on a presentation envelope postmarked on the first date the stamps were released. However, there can be lots of different first day covers for a set and also different postmarks. There can also be first day covers for individual and blocks of the stamps.

    

Stamp sets can also have a corresponding set of postcards. These are postcards with the images of the stamps. Postcards can also come as first day covers.

Maxi-Cards are also postcards but they have extended pictures, not just the stamps, and they also have the corresponding stamp on the front as well.

Stamps can also come in Miniature sheets. These can either be a connected mint set of the stamps or it can be the stamps within a bigger picture. These sheets can be of different sizes and with different edging configurations.

    

A set of stamps can also come in Adhesive format. These are smaller versions of the actual stamps with an adhesive backing. These can also come as folding booklets.

Overlaps with other Areas
There is very little overlap with any other areas.

The only thing to mention is that there are some first day covers which also include coins.

Out of Scope
There is nothing considered out of scope.

Promotional
This is not an area with many promotional items to collect, there is only a few posters and flyers.

GB Royal Mail did run a promotion featuring the Return of the King movie, although this was just for the company and not for any specific stamps.

Away from the Normal
There is not really anything within this area which is considered away from the norm.

Specialisations
If, however, this area is still too big for you, you could also specialise in one of the specific series. The New Zealand Film series is large anough to collect on its own with some high end items.

Another idea is to collect first day covers, particularly for the GB series, there are quite a few to be found for the 50th Anniversary series.

High End
For the New Zealand film sets, Ultimate Collections were produced which were very expensive items.

Rare, Unusual and Interesting Items

The following are some of the rarer, unusual and interesting items to be found within the Stamp area.

Magical Worlds Hobbit Postcard with misspelling - the Postcard of the Hobbit Stamp in the set was originally released with the wrong ‘Tolkein’ spelling. It was subsequently re-printed correctly. These are quite easy to come by but are still interesting.

Buckingham and Benham Signed First Day Covers - the Buckingham Cover Company and Benham Covers producs specialist First Day Covers, including some which are Tolkien related, and some of which are signed, particularly by the stars of the movies. These are very limited and quite hard to find. Shown is one signed by Christopher Lee.

New Zealand Lord of the Rings and Hobbit Minuature Sheet Collection Book - an album of all the Lord of the Rings and Hobbit miniature sheets.

Isle of Man Limited Edition Boxed Set - limited to 1000, an album of the Return of the King movie stamps including sheetlets, miniature sheets, Postcards, first day covers etc.

Full Uncut Sheets - a full sheet of uncut stamps is quite rare. This is a sheet of GB 50th Anniversary.

What to watch out for

There are ‘fake’ stamps. These are stamps which were not actual legal tender, they were just produced to sell to collectors. These often are credited to quite obscure countries.

Quality is a consideration for anything collectable. For stamps, be sure that the perforations are not damaged. For used stamps it is better to have a light franking.

Storage and Display
Stamps are very easy to store, they are small and can easily be stored in binders and specialist stamp books.

Stamps can also be framed to make nice display items.

What makes this area Interesting?
Stamps have always been popular to collect, they are easy to store and display.

Tolkien stamps is a relatively small area, so you can aim to be a completist, however there are quite a few diverse items including high end which also makes it challenging.

Apart from the high end, items are fairly affordable and available.

Resources
As well as the reference given above, the following resources have a lot more details about Tolkien Stamps.

Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide - Stamps

Collect British Stamps (search for Tolkien and Lord of the Rings)

Stamps of the World (search for Tolkien, Lord of the Rings and Hobbit)

Norvic Philatelic

Daryl’s Collections

Gandalf’s Lord of the Rings NZ Stamps

Collecting Tolkien Computer and Video Games

This is the second in the series of articles giving an overview of a specific Tolkien Collecting area. It is not a completest list of everything to do with the area (see the Visual Collecting Guides for that), but an introduction to the area to give people an idea of what the area is about.

Size of the Area

Computer and Video Games is suprisingly a medium sized Tolkien area to collect, there are only 12 categories within it, with approximately 38 games, however, there are a large number of versions, releases and editions of each game, and there are also a lot of related items, which makes it actually a bigger area than you would expect.

Overview, History and Scope

This scope is not meant to specifically set boundaries to any individual collection, but purely to define the scope of what is covered within this article and, to a lesser extent, what I consider the collecting area to includes.

The Computer and Video Games area consists roughly of 12 categories and approximately 38 games, which in itself is not that many.

Please note that the game images given below are just examples, there are many more editions and variations of each game.

80s independents – a variety of small individual games by different companies for the very early Computer and games consoles. These are mostly unlicensed, some with quite tenuous Tolkien connections (only name references etc) and some being Tolkien parodies. These games are Akalabeth (California Pacific), Lord of the Rings (Kansas), Shadowfax (Postern), Lord of the Balrogs (Supersoft), Moria (Severn), Gandalf the Sorcerer (Game Gems), Bord of the Rings (Delta4), Boggit (Delta4), An Everyday tale of a Seeker of Gold series (Zenobi).

                          

Melbourne House/Addison-Wesley – this was the first licenced series of games based directly on the books and produced for various computers and consoles. It was distributed by Addison-Wesley in the US and had very different packaging. The games within the series are The Hobbit, Lord of the Rings: Part 1 (Fellowship of the Ring in the US), Shadows of Mordor, The Crack of Doom (US only), War in Middle Earth.

                        

Interplay – this is a very small series of games based on the books. The games are Lord of the Rings, Lord of the Rings Part 1, The Two Towers.

        

Konami - produced just a single game, Riders of Rohan, based on the books.

    

Sierra – this series was released at the same time as the movies but is not movie based. The games in the series are Lord of the Rings, The Hobbit, War of the Ring.

            

Electronic Arts (EA) Lord of the Rings Movies – these are the official series of games based on the movies (there was no Fellowship game). The games in this series are The Two Towers, Return of the King, The Third Age, Tactics.

                

Warner Brothers Individuals – these are individual stand alone games which are not movie based. The games are Aragorn’s Quest, War in the North, Guardians.

            

Electronic Arts (EA) Battle for Middle Earth – a strategy based series by EA which are based on the movies. Games are Battle for Middle Earth, Battle for Middle Earth II, Rise of the Witch-King (expansion).

        

Warner Brother Lord of the Rings Online – a huge online world not movie based, with a lot of expansions (although most of these are download only, so not collectable). This is the first series to have a lot of different ‘editions’ of games. The games are Shadow of Angmar, Mines of Moria (expansion).

        

Electronic Arts (EA) Individuals - this is just a single game, Conquest, based on the movies.

    

Lego – these are movie based (Lord of the Rings and Hobbit) but with the Lego twist. Lego dimensions is not Tolkien specific, but it does have Tolkien figures, including a Gandalf which comes with the basic system.

            

Warner Brothers ‘Shadows’ – these are the most recent games and the most advanced. They are not movie based. There are 2 games, Shadow of Mordor and Shadow of War, however there is a large number of editions and different packaging releases for each game.

        

However there is a lot more to the Computer and Video Games area than just the individual games.

Firstly, for each of the games, there are multiple versions available for different Computers and Consoles.

    

As well as this there are also multiple releases of the same game and the same version, all with different packaging.

            

And often different ‘editions’ (i.e. Limited, Collectors, Mithril, Final, etc) of the same game, particularly the more recent games.

                

Games within a series are often re-packaged and re-released together.

            

All these different variations together mean that overall there are quite a lot of items available to collect.

Overlaps with other Areas

There is quite a lot of overlap with other Tolkien Collecting areas.

Some versions of Games, particularly the higher end versions come with additional items including Statues, Minifigures, Maps etc.

    

The US release of the Sierra series of games included Collectors Cards.

    

There are also a lot of Computer and Video Games Magazines featuring Tolkien Game covers and articles.

            

Although other computing/console items are generally out of scope (see below) some of those items are included if they are ‘branded’ specifically to a game.

    

A lot of the games have printed Game Guide books.

        

Out of Scope

Importantly, as we are looking at collecting and therefore are only interested in physical items which were/are commercially available, the computer world allows for non-packaged software to be purchased and downloaded, there are also a lot of other games which were/are either freeware/shareware or directly downloadable with nothing physical to collect, these games are not included in this overview (see the Tolkien Computer Games site for comprehensive details of all Tolkien games).

This area is looking at games only, out of scope are other computer items such as hardware, non-game software, peripherals etc, unless they are branded specifically to a game.

Promotional

There are quite a lot of promotional items for Computer and Video Games including Posters, T-Shirts and other branded items. These are very collectable as they are quite hard to find.

        

There are also quite a lot of shop promotional items including Posters, Standups and Flyers.

        

Away from the Normal

Nearly all the games were also published in multiple Countries around the World, a lot of which had different packaging, particularly with different languages.

Specialisations

As with most collecting, the main specialisation is to focus on a specific Countries releases, or expanding this to a specific language.

The obvious area of specialisation within Computer and Video Games is to collect a specific series.

You could also focus on a specific production company i.e. all EA games.

Another idea is to collect games for a specific Computer or Console i.e. XBOX Games only.

High End

There are not many high end items within Computer and Video games. The only ones are the Mithril Editions of the later games. These often include statues and other additional items, as well as the best versions of the games themselves.

Rare, Unusual and Interesting Items

The following are some of the rarer, unusual and interesting items to be found within the Computer and Video Game area.

Atari 2600 Prototype

Atari planned to release a Lord of the Rings game for the Atari 2600 Console. Although this was never actually released the game was actually created and a prototype produced. As well as this some packaging was designed and displayed at shows. Being one off’s these items are extremely rare (see AtariAge).

    

Akalabeth

This was the first Tolkien related game, although only vaguely related. This self published version is very very rare with only 12 copies produced. The game was officially released and became the pre-curser to the hugely successful Ultima series (not Tolkien related in any way).

    

Tandy Lord of the Rings Game

The Tandy Lord of the Rings Game by Kansas was the first specifically Tolkien related game and is extremely rare. I have never seen one for sale.

    

Battle for Middle Earth Rise of the Witchking

This expansion is not too hard to find, but is quite sort after and as such is relatively expensive.

    

Shadow of War Mithril

This was an expensive high-end limited edition item which came with a lot of extras including a limited edition 12” statue, premium case with magnetic ring, lithographs, stickers, parchment map, soundtrack. These are not hard to find but are expensive.

        

Lord of the Rings Online Collectors Limited Edition

This is a numbered Limited Edition and as such there are not that many around. It is however not impossible to find these.

        

Return of the King Sega Bootleg

This is an unofficial bootleg game for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis. It’s not an original game but a skin of a fighting game. I’m not exactly sure what the actual produced packaging is.

https://bootleggames.fandom.com/wiki/The_Lord_of_the_Rings_3:_Return_of_the_King

    

Sierra Lord of the Rings Collectors Cards Set

Not an actual game however these cards came free with Lord of the Rings game in the Sierra series (only in the US version). You did not know which one you would get and I’m not even sure how many are in the set (I have identified 23 to date). As people usually only purchase one copy of the game, it is almost impossible to find a completed set. Note: there are also smaller card sets with the other games in the series.

    

SNES Lord the Rings by Interplay

This is not particularly hard to find, however it is getting more and more expensive to buy.

    

What to watch out for

Computer Software used to be easy to copy and pirate, therefore you should be very wary of copies (tapes, disks, cd’s and dvd’s etc).

As with most collecting the condition of the item is important. Sealed items are obviously best, although theses cost the most. For used items the quality of the packaging is important, particularly for boxed games, and it is important that all the extras are there, particularly the instruction booklets. For Computer and Video Games the condition of the actual game itself (disc/tape/cd/dvd) is important, does it work, how scratched is it.

One thing to look out for when buying Computer and Video Games from eBay is to be certain of the actual version you are buying, sellers sometimes show images of a different version from the one they supply, be sure that the image shown is of the actual item.

Storage and Display

Computer and Arcade Games are relatively small and compact and as such are easy to store.

Bookshelves of games do make quite a good display, although in themselves they are not very ornamental.

What makes this area Interesting?

This is actually a very interesting Tolkien Area to collect. There is such a verity of releases, versions, editions etc of the games.  It covers a reasonable period of time (not just the movies) and follows quite a good evolution of Computer and Video games in General. Computer and Video Games as a topic in its own right is quite collectable, particularly from a retro perspective.

Computer and Video Games is a reasonable sized area, but not overly big, with some good options for specialisation.

The majority of items in the area are very affordable.

Resources

As well as the reference given above, the following resources have a lot more details about Tolkien Computer and Video Games.

Tolkien Visual Collecting Guide - Computer and Video Games Part 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

MobyGames

Internet Fiction Database

Museum of Computer Adventure Game History

Wikipedia - Middle Earth in Video Games

The 405 - JRR Tolkien in Video Games

Polygon - History of The Lord Lord of the Rings in Video Games

LOTR Wiki

Kotako - 40 Years Video Games Still Don’t do Lord of the Rings Justice

The Gamer - Lord of the Rings Video Games Ranked

I would also recommend looking at websites which focus on a particular console/system, these have very good details about individual games albeit for that system, although you will have to search for specific games.