Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

2
TMcLim wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 6:00 am Hello everyone! I just wanted to share with you guys a project that @Valkrist and myself have collaborated on. A new podcast dedicated to collecting all things Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth! With an emphasis on interviewing other collectors across the community. So please enjoy and let us know what you think!

https://youtu.be/zFMapnTAP4w
Great, I'll take a look at your podcast today while I work. :)

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

3
XerachCruz wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 1:04 am
TMcLim wrote: Thu Oct 20, 2022 6:00 am Hello everyone! I just wanted to share with you guys a project that @Valkrist and myself have collaborated on. A new podcast dedicated to collecting all things Lord of the Rings and Middle Earth! With an emphasis on interviewing other collectors across the community. So please enjoy and let us know what you think!

https://youtu.be/zFMapnTAP4w
Great, I'll take a look at your podcast today while I work. :)
Let us know what you think of it!
Image

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

4
TMcLim wrote: Fri Oct 21, 2022 5:27 am Let us know what you think of it!
I have enjoyed listening to you and it has made my afternoon of work more enjoyable. :)

As a new collector, who just like you, I've also only been collecting for two years, I liked that conversation between someone like me who is starting out in the world of collecting with a collector with as much experience as Valkrist.

I subscribe so I don't miss the next one. ;)

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

8
I listened to it while working a few days ago. Nice to hear the actual voices of my fellow collectors.

It's a good start and I look forward to the next one. I assume there will be specific themes for each episode going forward? You could do one that focuses specific characters that have been represented by Weta, Sideshow, and others, pointing out the pros and cons of different sculpts. Or one on specific prop replicas. Or a 'things we would like to see' episode about things that have not been done yet by Weta or UC. There are dozens of themes you could do whole episodes on.
KRDS

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

9
Nasnandos wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 6:07 am I listened to it while working a few days ago. Nice to hear the actual voices of my fellow collectors.

It's a good start and I look forward to the next one. I assume there will be specific themes for each episode going forward? You could do one that focuses specific characters that have been represented by Weta, Sideshow, and others, pointing out the pros and cons of different sculpts. Or one on specific prop replicas. Or a 'things we would like to see' episode about things that have not been done yet by Weta or UC. There are dozens of themes you could do whole episodes on.
Thank you Kit! It is an honor that you took the time to listen to our first episode!

Yes that is the plan! We want to have a good mix of interviewing other collectors and their collecting journey as well as discussing topics like SSW vs Weta and New Collectibles we would like to see. Or Sideshow vs Prime 1, or the ultimate Gandalf collectible. Or prop replicas, custom made collectibles. So yes lots of topics and discussion to be had!
Image

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

12
Loved it! It's always interesting to see people you know through text only for the first time. Tyler sort of looks like what I imagined but I can't think of Val and not see The Shat :D ;)

On the subject of a new pose for Aragorn at Amon Hen, I've always thought the pose of when he stares down the Uruk-hai right after drawing his sword would look great.

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

13
Ronin wrote: Sat Nov 05, 2022 3:44 am Loved it! It's always interesting to see people you know through text only for the first time. Tyler sort of looks like what I imagined but I can't think of Val and not see The Shat :D ;)

On the subject of a new pose for Aragorn at Amon Hen, I've always thought the pose of when he stares down the Uruk-hai right after drawing his sword would look great.
Haha yes I know what you mean, I was also expecting Captian Kirk the first time.

Yes that would make for a great statue.
Image

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

26
MiddleEarthFanPa wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 9:10 am
Just finished watching it and really like the collection and the way you have it displayed. You can tell a lot of thought went into the layout of the display.
Thank you. 😁

Yes, it was a painstaking and agonizing process, especially when I quickly became aware that I didn't quite have as much space as I'd initially imagined. It's weird, but I somehow feel like I ended up with less than before, and my old room was definitely smaller. I think part of it had to with me being conscious of a few future releases that I might want, and ensuring I left a spot or two for those. Big part of the reason why I don't collect Weta anymore outside of a few select pieces is that their focus of late is just making things bigger, bigger, and bigger.
This Space for Rent

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

27
Another great video and happy to finally get to see the new room all set up! I'm sure it is a sense of relief and comfort to have it done and unpacked to come visit it whenever you like. I know it was for me after having it all packed up for awhile.

I can totally sympathize with you on space and the ever growing Weta environments. Even other companies now are coming out with 1/3, 1/2 and 1/1 scale pieces. Who has room for this stuff 20 years later? Just like you I'm going to have a hard time finding room for the remaining 43 hobbit holes!

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

28
Valkrist wrote: Mon Dec 04, 2023 7:28 am Thanks, guys! :thumbs_up

Well, there's another episode up now, and this time it's my new collection room... finally! Hope you enjoy the tour. :cheers:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CWUc-1MG6A&t=165s
Will always be envious of your collection! I had the honor of seeing the old display. Hope I have the chance to make it out to your new place one of these days, that is, if you will have me :)
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

30
Valkrist wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 1:14 pm
BladeCollector wrote: Wed Dec 13, 2023 5:26 am
Will always be envious of your collection! I had the honor of seeing the old display. Hope I have the chance to make it out to your new place one of these days, that is, if you will have me :)
Any time you and your lovely wife are in Vancouver, the door is always open, my friend. :cheers:
Deal! I would love to visit Vancouver again!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

31
I chanced across this video while randomly surfing YouTube (I didn't recall it being linked on our forum, strangely), and having watched about half of it now, my mind is boggled. Dude, you are one serious collector! I probably have only about 5% of the amount of things that you do, and have maybe less than half on display. I have a full basement that remains unfinished and my pipe dream is that someday I will finish it, including a dedicated home theater with a media/collection room "lobby." Given how costs of everything have spiraled upwards in the last few years, finishing the basement will likely remain a pipe dream. I don't want to pay off my mortgage and retire only to turn around and take out another mortgage. Also, whether I finish the basement is tied to whether I stay in my current house, which is in turned tied to whether I stay in my current city once I retire. All these things I ponder/pine over upon occasion, such as when I happen across videos like this!

You mentioned the irony of having a larger space but feeling like it is smaller. I can definitely sympathize with that. My current house is bigger than my first house and yet I feel like I have less space for collectibles. I went from a house with two large bedrooms to a house with three smaller bedrooms, and the bedroom I use as my library/collectible room/home office can only hold five bookcases, compared to six in the correlative room of the old house. Thus, the sixth case sits in the unfinished basement with most of my LOTR collectibles stored in their boxes and packed into the case. The only things I really have on display upstairs are my LE Anduril and the WETA Rivendell, plus the bluray tie-in statues and a small handful of Hallmark Tolkien ornaments.

"Fortunately" I guess I never got as much into Tolkien collecting as a lot of folks on the forum. I was always gobsmacked by the prices of things. It's not that I don't blast money into the stratosphere on collecting things, but the things I buy are typically much less expensive per unit item. CDs are my #1 collection, followed by books and blurays. I have mostly weaned myself off of Hallmark ornaments, partly through their lack of producing as many things that appeal to me and partly due to my questioning the point when most of them are packed in storage tubs in the basement. Someday I probably need to have a reckoning and unload a lot of my mathoms, especially since like Picard, I've become aware that there are more days behind than there are ahead, and there seems little point in owning a lot of the things I do as the golden years come upon me.
"Olorin I was in the West that is forgotten...."

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

32
I'm glad you had a chance to view it! I know you saw pictures of my old room from way back when, but it feels like I had probably around a quarter of the stuff then that I do now. :O

Yeah, I totally feel you on the daunting prospect and costs of renovations, having just spent the first eight months of life in our new home dealing with contractors, noise, dust, and ever-rising costs. Having said that, this place is nearly twice the size of our old one, so it was to be expected that the snowball effect of doing stuff would be in full force. That basement you saw in the video was 100% unfinished, and had been that way for 30 years, the age of this house. The good part about building it up is that you're essentially starting from scratch, so you're not dealing with any previous construction and finishing choices made by the previous owners and having to either work around that or spend extra money demolishing stuff. If there was any downside to it all, it was that the basement room is also where the utilities were located (hot water tank, heating furnace, etc), so some floor space had to be sacrificed to create a dedicated closet for those.

In terms of overall square footage though, it is still a bigger collection room than my previous one, but as it is situated at the back of the house (which is on a hill slope), the basement is actually a ground level floor, so it has two large windows. While a nice feature for natural light that I did not previously have, it does eat up a considerable amount of wall space. I also had my theatre room set up in the same space as my collection room before, but as you can tell from the video, I elected to set that up elsewhere, so the new collection room is 100% dedicated to just collectibles now, as well as space for RPG and board gaming with my friends.

On the topic of collecting though, and again, as you can hear me bemoan in the video, there is simply no more space other than for a future select piece or two, for which I painstakingly had to plan for. As N2 and I touched on above, companies seem hellbent on coming out with bigger and bigger collectibles these days, which is a bit odd for an IP that is passing the 20-year mark now, meaning that most serious collectors are at the stage that I'm at, having started way earlier, and simply have no more space unless we start replacing things. However, the prices have also risen considerably while wages have not, and the economy is currently on toilet flush and repeat mode of late, so I don't know where companies like Weta and everyone else that's recently decided to jump into this game figures people are getting thousands and thousands of dollars of disposable income for a luxury hobby like this. I think collecting has reached a bubble and it's going to burst badly.

I do hope it recovers though because I have no intention of hanging onto this stuff forever. No children to pass it onto, and though my collection is currently willed to my nephew should something sudden happen to me, I do plan to sell it off one day and take the wife on a nice trip around the world when we retire. For that to happen though, the collectibles market and the economy really needs to bounce back. Fortunately, I've got quite a few years ahead while I wait for that to happen. :thumbs_up
This Space for Rent

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

33
Olorin wrote: Wed Dec 27, 2023 7:27 am I chanced across this video while randomly surfing YouTube (I didn't recall it being linked on our forum, strangely), and having watched about half of it now, my mind is boggled. Dude, you are one serious collector! I probably have only about 5% of the amount of things that you do, and have maybe less than half on display. I have a full basement that remains unfinished and my pipe dream is that someday I will finish it, including a dedicated home theater with a media/collection room "lobby." Given how costs of everything have spiraled upwards in the last few years, finishing the basement will likely remain a pipe dream. I don't want to pay off my mortgage and retire only to turn around and take out another mortgage. Also, whether I finish the basement is tied to whether I stay in my current house, which is in turned tied to whether I stay in my current city once I retire. All these things I ponder/pine over upon occasion, such as when I happen across videos like this!

You mentioned the irony of having a larger space but feeling like it is smaller. I can definitely sympathize with that. My current house is bigger than my first house and yet I feel like I have less space for collectibles. I went from a house with two large bedrooms to a house with three smaller bedrooms, and the bedroom I use as my library/collectible room/home office can only hold five bookcases, compared to six in the correlative room of the old house. Thus, the sixth case sits in the unfinished basement with most of my LOTR collectibles stored in their boxes and packed into the case. The only things I really have on display upstairs are my LE Anduril and the WETA Rivendell, plus the bluray tie-in statues and a small handful of Hallmark Tolkien ornaments.

"Fortunately" I guess I never got as much into Tolkien collecting as a lot of folks on the forum. I was always gobsmacked by the prices of things. It's not that I don't blast money into the stratosphere on collecting things, but the things I buy are typically much less expensive per unit item. CDs are my #1 collection, followed by books and blurays. I have mostly weaned myself off of Hallmark ornaments, partly through their lack of producing as many things that appeal to me and partly due to my questioning the point when most of them are packed in storage tubs in the basement. Someday I probably need to have a reckoning and unload a lot of my mathoms, especially since like Picard, I've become aware that there are more days behind than there are ahead, and there seems little point in owning a lot of the things I do as the golden years come upon me.

I'm already doing the although I don't have a lot to unload.
I'm keeping John Lowe's Arkenstone , Palantir, Silmarils s and Phial of Galadriel.
ALso about a dozens swords.
Will be selling off the two helms I bought from Strider's Heir...t the original first run of Elendil's helm and Isildur's helm.
Also Ellessar's Pauldron's and vambraces by WIndlass.
The Weta Isildur statue will go. Treebeard, and enviros of Black Orthanc, New Argonath, Rivendell and LE of Bilbo at Bag End stay.
Indy's Red Book stays. And of course, my three Jens Hansen ring are keepers.
All my Shire post mint coins are keepers.

Where are you looking to retire?

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

35
Olorin wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 11:39 am
Deimos wrote: Sun Dec 31, 2023 3:56 am
Where are you looking to retire?
That's a good question. Wish I had a good answer. Inertia being what it is, quite possibly right where I am.

Nothing wrong with that.
I moved to AZ (Phoenix Metro ) in April of 1982.... bought a house in October 1983.
Retired Sept 2016.... sitting here typing this post in the same house. :D

"Eternity is an awful long time, especially towards the end."

"What you see and what you hear depends a great deal on where you are standing.
It also depends on what sort of person you are.” -- CSL

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

41
Nasnandos wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 7:03 am I did not realize that we talked for over two hours! Hopefully I did not ramble on so much that it puts people to sleep.
Are you kidding? I think we could've gone on another two hours! I think we nearly did after we stopped the recording. :crazy:

Seriously though, that was a real pleasure, thanks for hanging out with us and sharing all those cool stories and props. Tyler forgot to pin the camera on your video feed to make it fill the screen when you were showing stuff off, but hopefully everyone can still see everything clearly enough.
This Space for Rent

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

42
Just finished watching, and thoroughly enjoyed the entire 2+ hours! I made sure to post a link in my stories on Instagram so more collectors can watch this.

There is one thing, I've never asked here or wasn't covered on the podcast. I know UC acquired the Weta stunt props for replication due to the licencing agreement. But how do Kit end up with them in his personal collection? I know a few of them have been sold to collectors and a few have made it to auction houses occasionally as I've seen the signed COA's Kit sent with them.

Much appreciated the time spent by all 3 of you, and the information shared!

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

43
N2darkness wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 8:58 am Just finished watching, and thoroughly enjoyed the entire 2+ hours! I made sure to post a link in my stories on Instagram so more collectors can watch this.

There is one thing, I've never asked here or wasn't covered on the podcast. I know UC acquired the Weta stunt props for replication due to the licencing agreement. But how do Kit end up with them in his personal collection? I know a few of them have been sold to collectors and a few have made it to auction houses occasionally as I've seen the signed COA's Kit sent with them.

Much appreciated the time spent by all 3 of you, and the information shared!
I could be remembering wrong, but as someone who bought one of these from Kit, I *think* he purchased them from UC.

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

45
N2darkness wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 8:58 am There is one thing, I've never asked here or wasn't covered on the podcast. I know UC acquired the Weta stunt props for replication due to the licencing agreement. But how do Kit end up with them in his personal collection? I know a few of them have been sold to collectors and a few have made it to auction houses occasionally as I've seen the signed COA's Kit sent with them.
I bought the entire collection from the old UC. I had already left the company to start my own business by then, but I was still doing a lot of their product development and visited their offices every week. I found all of the props were being stored, poorly, under a staircase in the basement. I made an offer to them, but made it clear I would keep them to use for future replicas. It's a good thing I did, because they filed for bankruptcy a few years later! Who knows what would have happened to them.

I did not have the room to display them at the time, so they stayed locked in storage. After few years I felt like a hoarder, so I let a few go to other collectors. They were better off with people who could actually display them properly, but I wish I had never sold any of them off now!
KRDS

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

46
Valkrist wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 9:22 am I also recall him saying (maybe even in this interview or perhaps before we started recording), that New Line/Weta never asked for them back?
Each piece in the UC collection was purchased directly from Weta, so those were never going back.

Weta did loan us some props early into the license. They were still filming so those had to go back. I think we were only allowed to have them a week or so, just enough time to get what we needed to replicate them.
KRDS

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

47
Valkrist wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 7:27 am
Nasnandos wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 7:03 am I did not realize that we talked for over two hours! Hopefully I did not ramble on so much that it puts people to sleep.
Are you kidding? I think we could've gone on another two hours! I think we nearly did after we stopped the recording. :crazy:

Seriously though, that was a real pleasure, thanks for hanging out with us and sharing all those cool stories and props. Tyler forgot to pin the camera on your video feed to make it fill the screen when you were showing stuff off, but hopefully everyone can still see everything clearly enough.
I second what Val said! I'm totally jealous! Spending over 2 hours talking swords and LOTR etc with the man himself is like a dream!
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

48
Nasnandos wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 9:37 am I bought the entire collection from the old UC. I had already left the company to start my own business by then, but I was still doing a lot of their product development and visited their offices every week. I found all of the props were being stored, poorly, under a staircase in the basement. I made an offer to them, but made it clear I would keep them to use for future replicas. It's a good thing I did, because they filed for bankruptcy a few years later! Who knows what would have happened to them.

I did not have the room to display them at the time, so they stayed locked in storage. After few years I felt like a hoarder, so I let a few go to other collectors. They were better off with people who could actually display them properly, but I wish I had never sold any of them off now!
Thanks for the back story and extremely happy you got the opportunity to do so as they couldn't have gone to a better home.

I would have been absolutely heart broken if they would have ended up in the trash once UC went under!

Re: Lord of the Collections Podcast

50
Valkrist wrote: Thu Mar 07, 2024 10:14 am Ah, thanks for the clarification. Odd that UC would have to pay for the props in the first place; you'd think that would be included in the licensing fee that UC had to pay to NLC.
Yeah, nothing is ever free. That was common with licenses. Most of the time we just received prop photos from the licensors, or were loaned props. There were only a few times before LOTR that we were able to get film props from the production to keep, and those always had to be paid for. With LOTR it was pretty obvious after the first few replicas that we would need actual props for reference going forward. If it were not for the fact that they were still in production and actively making stunt props for filming, I doubt we would have been able to get anything. It also helped that the US dollar was so strong back then than the conversion rate against the NZD made the props very affordable.

I think I mentioned this in our conversation after the podcast finished, but I was still trying to get a few props we needed in late 2003. The production had closed by that time and most of the molds were in such bad shape that they could not be used anymore. After one fell apart, Weta finally said no more. I am thankful they kept helping us as long as they could.
KRDS
Post Reply

Return to “Reviews & Articles”

cron