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Unauthorized LOTR movie profiteers move to private auctions - Lord of the Rings news - J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings

July 11, 2000 at 00:22:43

All the fuss about eBay shutting down auctions and stunt people getting arrested in New Zealand has driven eager relatives of people employed on Peter Jackson's "Lord of the Rings" productions to conducting private auctions by email.

"My sister works on the set of LOTR here in Aotearoa (New Zealand) and has a vest given to cast and crew to celebrate the half-way shooting point. Its blue, has Lord of the Rings embroidered on the front and Day 133 on the back. She is looking to sell to the highest bidder. Anyone interested?"

Just exactly who is entitled to be included in the exclusive list of bidders? Apparently anyone with a Tolkien-related Web site.

During the Webmasters' panel at Dragoncon, all the Webmasters announced they had been approached with items purportedly from the LOTR productions. Xenite.Org receives all sorts of email, as we're sure other Webmasters do, and such offers are not exactly unusual for us. After much deliberation we have decided to go public about this. After all, some people may have struck upon the idea of selling forged items. Numerous pictures of various items have been published, including the above-mentioned jacket (Karl Urban wore one at Dragoncon).

TheOneRing.Net has posted photographs of two helmets, two shields, and a dwarf statue which New Line Cinema has put on display at an industry show. Undoubtedly these and other items will appear at future trade shows to help spark interest in the three-film production.

Although anyone directly associated with the objects is most likely being monitored, and would recognize a forgery immediately due to the limited amount of information being provided by the photographs, how are the rest of us to know the difference between the real items and clever forgeries? And if further arrests will be made for breaches of confidentiality, will the recipients of private email offers be affected in any way? (Will we, for example, be asked to provide the email? Xenite.Org will do so only under court order or to assist with a criminal investigation, as it is against our Privacy Policy to release private information to third parties for any other reason).

Clothing such as the celebratory jacket (which has been mentioned in more than one innocent media report) is even easier to fabricate. It need only be good enough to fool the unsuspecting (and uninformed) public. Such schemes have oft wrecked the reputations of high quality merchandise (Levi's jeans were forged in eastern Europe for years, and the fake denim merchandise often literally came apart at the seams).

It is not in Xenite.Org's -- or any large Web site's -- best interest to play the game, to remain silent, or to try and protect people who attempt to capitalize on the movies in an illegitimate way. But we have no way of knowing what is permissable, and what is not. Yet neither is it in the public interest to let these matters go unmentioned. Anyone who has attended a Renaissance Festival has undoubtedly seen there are blacksmiths who are capable of producing high-quality weapons and armor. Various sword manufacturers also post their catalogues on the Internet. The technology is widespread and the techniques are less forgotten now than they were 100 years ago.

Let the buyer beware. If you are approached for a private auction of LOTR movie merchandise, you may or may not be able to confirm its legitimacy, but in the end it's almost certain that authorized replicas will be sold for many items (how else to hurt the profits of the unauthorized profiteers?). And if you cannot confirm the legitimacy of an item said to be taken from one of the sets, is it really worth $3,000.00 to you to find out you've been duped?

Michael Martinez, owner of Xenite.Org, has more than once criticized the LOTR movies for utilizing a medieval motif (Tolkien's world is not medieval and doesn't even begin to resemble medieval Europe), but the medievality is forgiveable as being Peter Jackson's vision of Middle-earth. Many people feel Middle-earth is medieval, and they are entitled to believe whatever they wish. The topic has been widely debated on the Internet. But the ease with which these medieval styles may be forged by unscrupulous profiteers may only sadden an otherwise lively debate about the nature of Middle-earth if such fraudulent schemes are hatched.