Thank you to everyone who has shared their Tolkien Memorabilia with us! In this video Matt Fox, collector and curator of the Magic of Middle-earth shares more information about the collections.
See the exhibition at Experience Barnsley Museum until 6 April and take a virtual tour on our website www.experience-barnsley.com/middle_earth
Oh Oh hello all and a very warm welcome to you uh my name is Matt Fox and I am the curator of a museum exhibition called The Magic of Middle Earth um this exhibition is free to visit and it’s currently on show at the rather wonderful venue of experience barnesley
In the town hall right in the heart of barnesley it may not be the actual Shire but York Shire is not a bad standing it’s a very beautiful part of the world and one which did indeed provide some inspiration to Jr talking himself there are various walks and talking trails
That one can enjoy and barnsley’s connection extends to Sir Michael Sadler who was a famous patron of this city and indeed a patron of tolken too Sadler knew tolken well he was a sport of his and it was Sadler that gave tolken a professorship so if you haven’t been to
Barnsley to or or seen the magic of Middle Earth then I certainly extend the invitation speak friend and enter as mentioned it’s free and if you’re a fan of talking and midd Earth and which I presume you are because you’re watching this you’ll find much to enjoy the Magic in the exhibitions title
Could refer to spells and sorcery after all Gandalf is a wizard but actually magic also means enchantment and token’s creation certainly can cast a spell over readers Middle Earth feels so fully formed a world that feels real historical and has a powerful sense of the Perpetual about it um CS Lewis said
A world that seems to have been going on before we the reader stumbled into it and tolken himself used the phrase subc creation a secondary World which your mind can enter and readers can indeed become ATT tuned to Middle Earth and imagine things that might proceed beyond the page token’s broad Maps suggest
Regions unexplored in the text his Century spanning timelines leave ample room to fill out the history his managerie of races and inhabitants retain a life of their own and Can Be Imagined on Further Adventures and this makes Middle Earth a Minecraft like toolbox for creators of all types writers artists musicians filmmakers
Video game designers and there is an indication um in one of his letters that tolken himself hoped this would be so he wrote I had a mind to make a body of more or less connected Legend I would draw some of the great tales and fullness and leave many only placed in
The scheme and SK sketched the Cycles should be linked to a majestic ho and it leaves scope for other minds and hands wielding paints and music and drama and this exhibition seeks to curate and celebrate that artistic Legacy the adaptations and the interpretations the creative fire that Middle Earth lit
Within others before decrying it’s not as good as the book you know as we all feel Duty bound to do um we should realign our minds to accept some different mediums you know ations are not the book and whether it’s a radio play it’s a film it’s a game it’s a song
It’s a sculpture um you know they can be taken and appreciated on their own Merit does the actor’s performance convince you does the video game absorb you does the song stir you and even lesser adaptations that aren’t so great might increase the Renown of the source
Material and bring fresh eyes back to it so in this talk you’ll see some pieces that are quite close to Tolen if you’re a purist and some pieces that are really quite far removed um but hopefully they can all be enjoyed on their own Merit so the museum had lots of submissions of
Memorabilia and thank you so much um to everyone who shared pictures with us or or things from their Collections and the museum was calling it a search for Britain’s best toen memorabilia but that’s a bit of a misnomer there are standout high value isons but equally there are others which are well loved
But really just worth a quid we’ve had to whittle it down to 20 enturies and there are some fascinating items um some that I haven’t seen before myself so I think you’ll enjoy taking a look at these 20 things too so without further Ado let’s get on to our little talking
Talk Middle Earth memorabilia Lord of the Rings loot so uh Michael if we can please have the first item up on the screen so this rather special paper item is a menu printed on card which would have been sat on the dining table for a rather Swanky upmarket dinner held to
Celebrate the 60th anniversary of the Johnson Society one can picture the attendees in Black taii arriving at the venue of Pembrook College in Oxford which is an absolutely gorgeous 17th century building fantastic architecture and one of those attendees was our man John Ronald Rule toing now we can see
The date on the menu March the 6th 1931 which had put toi in at 39 years old at this point in his life he was married to Edith they had four children and he had fought and returned from World War I his job was a professor of anglo-saxon and
He was a fellow of Pembrook college so this dinner was held on home to Earth for him now we don’t know the exact date it happened but it was at pemr college and was very very close to this date in 1931 when tolken was sitting alone and
Marking students work The Story Goes he came across a blank page and was suddenly inspired upon that page he wrote the words in a hole in the ground there lived orbit which would become the famous opening line of his book and here on this menu we also see something
Tolken wrote The Eagle eyed amongst you may have already spotted it but amongst the signatories below and to the left of the date is token’s signature now for some of the items I’m going to do the Antiques Road Show bit and value them but it’s not for this one
It’s a one-off and as such the only way to ascertain its value would be to position it in a well publicized auction and see where the bidding ends that said I don’t think this will be sold anytime soon as it was submitted by the chap who runs the talking collector Guide website
The website is talking guide.com and if you’ve not visited it before then I would 100% recommend you do so it’s just a fantastic resource and has a huge amount of passion for Middle Earth poured into it um this menu really is a lovely thing what a great Survivor is
Nearly 100 years old and to even have that piece of colored ribbon uh is incredible so 1931 is around the conception of The Hobbit and we know that by the end of 1932 the draft manuscript was completed and CS Lewis and some other friends of talken had been given it to read and
Michael if you can advance to the next image this is from my exhibition here we see the published book which finally went to press in 1937 the initial print run of The Hobbit was 1500 copies and this is one of those original 1500 known as a first edition
First impression and again we see token’s distinctive signature accompanying Michael let’s look at the second item we’re staying with The Hobbit for now so we’re looking at here is the rather wonderful bagend diarama of Bilbo study which was made by wet a workshop in 2022 but uh that’s not what we are
Going to talk about rather I’d direct your gaze to humen it actually looks like something Bilbo’s painting in this pck the way he’s holding that quill but I can assure you it is a book ppen is The Hobbit translated into Swedish the book has been translated into over 60
Languages over the years but Swedish was the first back in 194 7 so 10 years after The Hobbit was first released in britan tolken wasn’t involved in the translation and had nothing kind to say about it writing to Alan and amwin in 1956 regarding an upcoming Dutch
Translation of his work tolken said I wish to avoid a repetition of my experience with the Swedish translation of The Hobbit I discovered that this had taken unwarranted liberties with the text and other details without consultation or approval it was was also unfavorably criticized in general by a Swedish expert familiar with the
Original to whom I submitted it later in the same year and writing on the same subject tolken more specifically points out a source of dislike with hpen to Raina amwin may I say now at once that I will not tolerate any similar tinkering with the personal nomenclature nor with
The name word Hobbit I will not have any more humen in which I was not consulted nor any Hobb or whatnot Michael if we can see the next image let’s have a look inside Humpin so the illustrator was a Swedish gentleman called torbor Zeta home and this illustration is very nice isn’t it
Gandal there at Bag End having the witty good morning conversation with bbo let’s go on another Michael yes and here’s billbo hanging on for dear life as after being rescued from WS a top of the burning pine tree all well and good let’s go to the next
Illustration Michael and oh dear it was going so well this is riddles in the dark and this picture is meant to be Bilbo and Gollum and this one really annoyed professor tolken in another of his letters he fumed the picture of Gollum in the Swedish edition of The
Hobbit makes him look huge it’s not great is it golum looks like a cross between one of Pac-Man’s ghosts the Badd from Scream and a whale despite the Liberties it took or perhaps because of them it’s actually a very sort after Edition and book sellers will usually
Ask around ,500 for a good condition copy of hpen let’s move on to the next item please Michael before tolken gets any angrier we are on safer ground here the next item sent in was a copy of the 1966 edition of The Hobbit I don’t think tolken would have objected to this
Because the cover illustration is actually in his hand obviously he’s known as a writer but tolkin was a pretty decent artist too you can just make out the the death of smow written in token’s hand across the middle of the image I personally have a bit of a soft
Spot for this particular Edition uh which sold a lot of copies from 1966 through to 1974 because this was the one I read as a child it’s not valuable it’s just a few pounds but thanks very much for sending this image in because you can see how well read this copy has been
And that means it’s given a lot of enjoyment and one small detail I will point out is smow the dragon Tolkien has Illustrated smow with four legs that’s also how smar began in the Peter Jackson Hobbit movies the the first film opens with a flashback of smow wiping out the
Dwarves in arabba and you get a blink and miss it flash of a four-legged smow however when it came to sm’s Big reveal in the the second movie they changed him to a two-legged dragon and if like me you’re really geeky then you’ll know that a two-legged dragon is
Not actually a dragon it’s a wyen so yes I shall be putting on my anarak and writing to Mr Jackson to complain so let’s have the next image now Michael here we can see the 1966 edition of The Hobbit amongst a whole bunch of other editions as well from my
Exhibition The Hobbit hasn’t actually been out of print since 1937 and although no one has a definitive answer to how many copies have been sold our best guess seems to be around 100 million I think it’s time to move on now from the h though so let’s see what’s next please
Michael okay oh golly yes these dos uh these are something else there’s another one as well I really don’t know anything about them um Michael maybe if you can go between this this dollar and the previous one there we go so uh my presumption is that these dogs are
Handmade uh by someone with talent for arts and crafts maybe a grandmother made them for a grandchild um I do not know uh so we’ve got Rosie cotton here um the hobbits that marry Sam gamji at the end of The Lord of the Rings and of course
Golum we saw in the other image um what can we say about these I would guess from the faces of the Dolls I’m G to Guess that they were made in the 1960s or 70s they’ve got that sort of slightly off-kilter discomforting sort of illustrative style about their faces um
That was sort of popular back in that era um I imagine a little kid of today might get a bit creeped out by this pair at the end of their bed though um and that dress on Rosie cotton uh The Tartan dress I’m sure my mom and dad back in
The 70s or 80s had a rug exactly like that Tartan um so I think they’re unique they are incredible I don’t know what they’re worth but they’re pric really to the owner so thank you very much for sending them in next item please ah yes my precious
Others May disagree but for me I think Gollum is the most Vivid of all talking characters on the page and the same is true of the films where actor Andy Circus brings him to life this is a sketch by an artist called Craig James and it’s signed by Andy and looking at
The picture it’s hard for me to tell if it’s a sort of a print um or the original artwork by Craig James if it’s a print then it’s probably about 25 pounds um the artwork would be a fair bit more it’s a very nice very nice image Michael if you can advance to
The next image I wanted to put this one in because it really shows the Dual personalities between the treacherous dangerous Gollum and the ra rather more sympathetic and pitiable smeagle you know when you think the previous Bar for a CGI character had been set with Jar Jar Binks in 1999’s The Phantom Menace
And this was really just a couple of years later and it’s incredible what WETA digital and Andy Circus achieved with bringing Gollum to life so well let’s see the next item please Michael aha now this is a box set um containing cassette tapes the BBC Radio
Adaptation of The Lord of the Rings this was made in 1981 by Brian siy and Michael Bakewell and comprised 26 half hour episodes this wasn’t a straight reading of the book’s text it was an actual dramatization uh with actors playing the roles most notably Ian home who played
Frodo and would have course gone to play Bilbo 20 years later in the Peter Jackson movies Michael if we can advance again we can see that adaptation featured on the cover of the radio times with some really quite groovy artwork by Eric Fraser uh the box sets of tapes
Aren’t worth a huge amount about 10 to 15 pounds but nice things to have particularly if you’ve got a cassette recorder that can still play them the next item please a and this is a lovely piece of jewelry Arwin even Stars necklace created as a reproduction piece from the
Designs in the film The Law of Middle Earth has the elves being renowned for creating beautiful jewelry and they were visualized for the movies by Jasmine Watson Jasmine is a New Zealand Jeweler and she’s also created jewelry for the Amazon series The Rings of power this is
A more premium Swarovski release of the even star and worth about100 Michael if you can advance to the next slide um we can see just quickly as well as even star W by Arwin we can see Nya gad’s ring and the Elvin broes given to the fellowship which also
Made by Jasmine Watson next item please ah and this is actually a whole series of character sketches by artist Andrew fry I think he’s very talented and um if you look at B’s eyes in the sket they really imbue the artwork with life so let’s Advance steadily through these Michael if we
May and again you can see character sketches of fantastic ones of e in there gadriel there’s Orlando as Legolas Vigo looking very serious as Aragon a lovely you know one really does capture the character there in mcel and as Gandalf Sean ason as Sam marry and Pippen there’s Elijah as
Frodo un home who we just talked about and of course the Christopher Lee King theen what two KS really and El R and I think this is pretty much a still directly from the film as is this one where Arwin Imagining the passing of Aragon okay fantastic let’s stop there
Because um this is more art and this time it’s a big one the uh the art of Alan Lee Alan Lee along with John how was the principal concept artist for the Peter Jackson’s movies and as a long-standing middle-ear artist prior to being hired for the films he brought a
Significant back catalog of designs with him and one of my favorite parts of the movie’s release were the making of documentaries on the DVDs and being able to see John how talk about his artwork he has such a sort of calm and soothing presence and this compendium of sketches
Released in 2005 give you a chance to see more of his creative process and with the signature attach this copy is around the of 60 to 70 pounds valuation Mark and next item please Michael I mentioning the DVDs here we go um the films have had a lot of Home
Releases the latest one being a box set on 4K but this release Here was a particularly good one because it was the extended edition gift set and it came with a collectible figurine of Gollum if we go to the next image Michael we can see sort of the the rear
Of that box set and Advance one more please um on the left of this shelf you can see the models that came with each of those films the argonath bookends uh came with the fellowship um golum as we’ve just seen came with the two towers and osgiliath came with Return of the
King they’re really quite nice weighty models with some good details and these gift sets are worth about 30 to 40 pounds each next item please oh yes now this is a bit Bonkers so this is a Pez dispenser and um when you have purist fans of the book and
They act as Gatekeepers and say talken wouldn’t have liked this or he wouldn’t have liked that I think that this perhaps might be on The Hit List um it just makes me laugh I think it’s custom made I can’t find anything about it online it looks kind of like Gollum from
The Ralph Baki Lord of the Rings cartoon perhaps surely if someone did indeed craft this themselves then nap gives it some extra Kudos I can’t value it I will just say it is beyond riches and look gollum’s even got his ring he’s even got the ring hang around his neck so he got
The ring in the in this version we better move on quick Michael oh here we have a New Zealand dollar where on safer ground these were minted in 2003 as a nice collectible thing and today they’re worth about 10 to 15 each if we go to the next image on stamps um
Coins uh even side of airplanes New Zealand has been proud to present itself as the home of Middle Earth if we can see the next image Michael um but just bring that up at its peak tourism to New Zealand increased by 50% following Peter Jackson’s movies um I’ve not been there
Yet myself but I will for sure go one day without fail and if we can go to the next item Michael aha now this this is from New Zealand and probably should still be in New Zealand um so this looks like a couple of fake leaves from the hobbiton
Film set which is open to the public to visit um I don’t know what happened to take only memories leave only Footprints you naughty person you um even the dog is unimpressed now I can’t value such stolen Goods but thanks for sending in the pick I hope you enjoy your illicit
Foliage so on again please Michael and here we have some very cool pieces from the film’s production behind the scenes these are production notes and I believe they’re based around special effects sequences um You probably won’t be to see it at your end but I’ve seen the name jeree on one of
The sheets and that was the working title code name of the production obviously movie props are well sought after but this type of paper ephemera um is collectible too I I’d need to have a better look inside really to Value them properly but I could see these achieving
Maybe three to 400 pounds on a prop store orun uh next item please Michael and back to books so this edition of Lord of the Rings was first printed in 1966 and um token said the book is not of course a Trilogy um Stan had actually published it as three books for econom
IC reasons to you know make three times the money and it wasn’t until 1968 that it appeared as intended as a single novel um then at the bottom of the stack um you can see Baron and luthan which takes extracts from the sil marilan and um other works to gather together
Everything Baron and luthan into one volume the Saran is obviously less well known to the general public because there hasn’t been a film adaptation of it but if there was to be a film then the story of Baron and LU would in my opinion be the best part of it to adapt
It’s a love story with loads of action and adventure 2 it’s really great stuff um valuing these four books it does depend somewhat on what specific additions uh they are um but I’d say around about the 100 pound Mark and next image please Michael now these sort of puta figurines
May not be to everyone’s taste but I’ll tell you why I like them um a problem we face today is how thoroughly Peter Jackson’s visualization of Middle Earth has entered the public Consciousness you know it presents a mental hurdle that artists must leap if a singular image of
Middle Earth is to be avoided and these figures were made by talking Enterprises and as you can see the character designs are their own um you can see for example the bow Rog on the bottom shelf very different from Jackson’s the smaller figurines go for about 20 pounds uh but
The larger ones can be sort of 70 to 80 so I’d say this is a nice collection maybe sort of £300 um if the collector also has the boxes then that will add to the value too Michael let’s have a look at the next item and oh yes lots of items now we’ve
Got a lot of stuff in one picture I’ve called this Lord of the Rings cor ucopia um Michael if you don’t mind advancing to the next picture we can zoom in a bit and pick some items out bottom left you definitely get brownie points for having
A flyer from my exhibition the magic of Middle Earth that’s great to see but what I’m drawn to um towards the top of the picture above the plates are the three medals these are called conqueror medals and you earned them by walking or cycling the distance covered by Frodo
Across the various stages of the journey from bagend to Mount Doom following in the footsteps of the fellowship as it were and you know it’s a great example of physical interaction fan interaction with Middle Earth if we have the next image please these are also from the
Cornicopia and here we have a closer view of those stamps what I like about these stamps is the font um these are stamps associated with the Peter Jackson movies you can see Orlando Bloom is legassi in mcll as Gandalf Etc but they’ve gone offbrand with a title font
You know The Branding for these things is normally so rigorously applied I don’t have a clue what’s happened here you can see the normal font in the top right pack of stamps uh that’s how they should look um but somehow they’ve got away with doing something different with
The Lord of the Rings logo on the other stamps and I like that as I said earlier I don’t think a singular brand or image of Middle Earth is a good thing so I like to see more artistic freedom and interpretation um there’s a bit too much
Stuff in one image for me to Value the whole cor ucopia but it all adds up and it’s a really nice collection um thank you so much for getting it all out in your Lounge uh and sending us the picture I really appreciate that um next item please
Michael ah here we have a very cool group of glasses and crafts I’d love to have a drink from these these came from an event organizer who worked on the big lord of the Wings movie event at can um this was held in May 2001 six months
Before the first film Fellowship of the Ring was due to Premiere and if we go to the next slide as well Michael there’s a there’s some more of these as well there we are to jump up high H and excitement for the film they showed a 26 minute showreel to the collected press
At cans it was the first footage that had been shown and they threw a lavish party and these pieces that we’ve seen um they came from that party and they certainly have the look of Middle Earth about them um I do know the values of these as they were sold quite recently
At auction it’s sort of two to 300 pound each there is some suggestion that as well as being used at the can’s party they could also have been movie props and if they could be screen matched and certainly that value would rise considerably just two items left now
Michael if you please to the next one this one is fun it’s a handmade model uh nothing 3D printed just carved cut and crafted the old-fashioned way it’s a model of the golden Hall of Medal cell which is the capital of Rohan and home to King theodan I do enjoy a good
Model and the time and dedication that goes into making one again I can’t value this is It’s a oneoff but thank you so much for the effort of creating it and sharing it and and letting us see it thank you and next image please Michael and this is very much in the
Tradition of saving the best till last um let’s go to the next image so we can really see what’s inside this book it’s a completely handwritten copy um with beautiful calligraphy of The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings every word copied out by hand we are looking at a labor of
Love and odyssey a quest to rival Sam and Frodo’s long trudge across Middle Earth uh I guess some of us do jigsaws some build models out of match sticks but Hungarian artist Harry istan found soothing calm in filling parchment after parchment with token’s text it took Harry three years to create these two
TOs and he worked on them three to four hours each day the the only thing he didn’t do was bind them if we go back to the previous slide Michael you can uh you can see The Binding here but uh he did describe taking almost 10 kilograms
Weight of parchment uh to a specialist who created these bindings if we if we Advanced through two slides now you can also see these books contain not just beautiful calligraphy but beautiful artwork too um it really is incredible the effort that’s gone into creating these and again it’s not
Something I can put a price on these two volumes really are Priceless at the start I talked about the Magic in Middle Earth enchanting people and putting them under it spell and uh these books we’ve finished with are a great example of that so um here ends our adventure 20
Really rather different things thank you all to all who submitted and if we didn’t show yours then do keep an eye on experience barnsley’s social media as I think the plan is to put some other items up onto those uh as a collector it can sometimes feel a little solitary and
Being able to share with you guys is a privilege and uh it means an awful lot to me so thank you very much for tuning in and Watching Yeah