The geek world is about to descend on San Diego for Comic Con International, and that includes a large contingent of TORn staffers and many of our dear friends, we hope you will all join us.
We just got a note from the team at Badali Jewelry, to give a sneak peek at some of their new Hobbit themed jewelry and remind us of some special promotions.
Hello TORn! Can’t wait to see you all next week. I just wanted to pass along our announcements for this years SDCC, which include the debut of 2 new Hobbit pieces! There may actually be a third, but we just have to wait and see if it will be ready when we leave on Wednesday. 😉
Can’t wait to see what the third exclusive piece is, let’s hope it is ready by Wednesday. Badali will be hosting TORn at their booth #532/534, which will allow you to look at all their beautiful jewelry, and then look at all our pins, shirts and poster.
We will also be debuting 3 brand new Officially Licensed The Hobbit pieces; Sterling Silver Baggins Cuff Links as well as White and Yellow Bronze Khuzdul Dwarven Battle Axes, available as either a necklace or a key chain. The Battle Axe features the Khuzdul Battlecry etched into the blade: Baruk Khazâd! Khazâd ai-mênu! – “Axes of the Dwarves! The Dwarves are upon you!”
We are bringing back the Comic Con Preview Night Exclusive Sale for 2013. During Preview Night (Wednesday the 17th) all customers will receive 30% off their entire purchase. This is a chance to receive the lowest prices on our jewelry for the entire year. We will have a full inventory of Arkenstone Replicas, Bag End Door Necklaces/Key Chains, Thror’s Key Necklaces/Key Chains, Sterling Silver One Rings, Nenya’s, The Arkenstone Necklace, Smaug Ring’s and Gollum Gold One Ring Necklaces, as well as select sizes of Sterling Silver Narya’s, Vilya’s and Gollum Creature Rings. Sterling Silver One Rings will be marked down from $108.00 to $75.60. Sterling Silver Nenya’s will be marked down from $99.00 to $69.30. Sterling Silver Arkenstone Necklaces will be marked down from $39.00 to $27.30! These will be some of the absolute lowest prices on our Lord of The Ring’s Jewelry that can be found all year long.
We are even offering 30% off the regular retail price for any orders that are placed with us at our booth on Preview Night. This means that literally everything on our website will be available at the 30% discount, including all 10k. and 14k. gold items. 10k. Yellow Gold One Rings can be order on preview night for $646.80, that’s a savings of $277.20 off the regular retail price.
If you can’t make it to Preview Night be sure to check out our ad in the events guide for a money saving coupon that can be used for the remainder of the con and be sure to stop by the booth to see what items are on sale.
In addition to our Lord of The Rings and The Hobbit Jewelry we will have new products for our Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time line and Brandon Sanderson’s Stormlight Archive line. We will also have a full inventory of our Patrick Rothfuss’ Kingkiller Chronicle, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn and Elantris, H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu and many of our other popular lines in stock.
And of course, we will be holding our annual Free Jewelry Drawing. This year you can choose from a Sterling Silver Thror’s Key Necklace, A Sterling Silver Eolian Talent Pipes Pin or Necklace from the Kingkiller Chronicle line or a Sterling Silver Lanfear’s Signet Ring from The Wheel of Time line. Entries will be taken through the entire convention and the drawing will be held on Sunday, July 21st at 1:00pm. Winner need not be present to win.
This Preview Night 30% discount really is one of the best deals you will find from Badali Jewelry, so peruse their website to see what you like and know the asking price, and then visit the booth on Wednesday and buy it on sale.
Hope to see you all this year and have a wonderful SDCC 2013!
As we get ready to go into Comic-Con we wanted to remind you all of a contest we’re doing with our friends at BUDK/United Cutlery. We’ve teamed up with them to give away one of their awesome Orcrist Replicas that you see Thorin use during The Hobbit: An Unexpeted Journey. There are only 17 days left in the contest and with all the excitement of what you’re going to see at Comic-Con we wanted to make sure you got your entries in before the end of the contest sneaks up on you.
If you have followed all the off-screen drama related to the film adaptation of “The Hobbit,” you know that teams of lawyers have been central to the nearly unbelievable plot. There is a history of legal maneuvering that stretches back around Middle-earth movies for decades.
In the current round of court battles the Tolkien Estate brought a lawsuit in Nov. 2012 against Warner Bros. for $80 million that centered on online slot machines and digital merchandise. By March, WB and the Middle-earth Enterprises (that owns the rights purchased from J.R.R. Tolkien and grants them to Warner Bros.) filed a counter-claim saying the lawsuit had damaged them and undermined rights to the property.
The Estate, and an entity called The Fourth Age Ltd. filed to dismiss the counter suit, saying it was simply a legal move to get rid of the original suit. The victory for Warners and Middle-earth Enterprises was judge Audrey Collins stamping a “denied” against the motion to dismiss, allowing the suit to go forward. As you might guess, it is far from settled and many lawyers will collect significant money yet hashing it all out. Most of our information comes from Deadline.com where you can read more details if you wish, including the six-page decision. Kudos to Deadline for its reporting but their decision to watermark this public document is a tad silly.
Deadline’s latest story can be found here. There are others, including by bizjournals.com, while Deadline’s story about the original suit can be read here.
The judge concludes with some clear language:
“For the foregoing reasons, Fourth Age’s Motions to Dismiss Amended Counterclaims and Special Motions to Strike Amended Counterclaims (docket nos. 40, 41, 42, and 43) are DENIED
. IT IS SO ORDERED.“
The Illuminated SilmarillionHow beautiful can a J.R.R. Tolkien book be? There are some fantastic illustrated versions of “The Hobbit,” “The Lord of the Rings,” and “The Silmarillion,” and each is beautiful and can be an impressive part of any library. There have been some deluxe versions of LOTR printed over the years which are expensive and impressive. But Benjamin Harff has done something on a whole new level. Following the tradition of ancient forms of book making, often by monks or priests working before the printing press, Harff has used the old style to make a simply amazing version of Tolkien’s “The Silmarillion.”
He produced the book as part of his schooling and says, “…but the main problem was my strict limitation in time and money. Looking back I cannot understand how it worked! For my exam it would have been enough to do calligraphy for only one or two chapters. But I didn´t want to have a book with maybe twenty printed and 380 empty pages! That would not have been worthy for a Tolkien-work and I had better done a short story or so. But I thought: „This is your exam and maybe the last time that you can do what you want as an illustrator!“ So I did it, and couldn´t have done it with that fire, wouldn´t it have been a Tolkien-work. And although this was extremely hard, the fire did not cease.”
The Tolkien Library has an interview with excellent images. You can read the whole story right here.
Gentle Giant has announced the next mini-bust in their line of collectibles from The Hobbit Trilogy. After a couple of bad guys in a row, they’ve now gone back to adding another of the good guys to the growing collection that Gentle Giant is creating. The next character to come into our homes will be our favorite burglar himself, Bilbo Baggins. As you can see from the pictures, we get Bilbo holding Sting on the same great marble-like base used with the other releases in this line. Bilbo comes in with a price tag of $70 for non-PGM members and $63 for PGM members. You have time to save up for ordering Bilbo as he isn’t due to ship until the second quarter of 2014.
Weta Workshop has a couple of really neat items for you with their latest releases. These items are fantastic and they allow you to stretch that collecting budget all at the same time. The two newest collectibles from Weta are a very cool prop replica of Bilbo’s Acorn Buttons and a pin celebrating Durin’s Day. The buttons are an exact replica of the buttons used on the jacket by Martin Freeman. You can order one of these buttons for $11 or you can order them as a set of 5  for $45. The Durin’s Day pin celebrates the day that will be of  the utmost importance to Thorin and company for getting into Erebor. The pin has some great looking Dwarvish script and a Thrush on it. Fans can order this pin from Weta’s website right now for $11. All of these items are in-stock right now and will be shipping from the New Zealand warehouse.
The geek world is about to descend on San Diego for Comic Con International, and that includes a large contingent of TORn staffers and many of our dear friends, we hope you will all join us.
