Battle of the Ring WWW 1977

Posts: 2919 · Posted: Fri Mar 14, 2008 1:50 pm

Anybody know how rare this item is? Where it was produced, approximate print run, anything?

Seems to be difficult to find much precise information on it, though there's a good description of it here:

http://www.boardgame.de/reviews/botr.htm

Posts: 2616 · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 2:49 am

The BGG page isn't half-bad:

http://www.boardgamegeek.com/game/6180

It seems to be part of a wave of unlicensed Tolkien collectibles that surfaced in the mid- and late-70s, many of which were boardgames (as unlikely as that might seem).

Posts: 508 · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 3:03 am

bombadil wrote:

Anybody know how rare this item is? Where it was produced, approximate print run, anything?

It appeared on ebay not long ago, but was the first I had ever seen of it. There were so many of these, mostly underground banned publications, that it's impossible to keep track.

All in all they form a good argument against intellectual property as we know it: what eventually became a gold mine for Tolkien's heirs required a decade of unlicensed product to get the ball rolling.

Imagine if something equivalent to the 'Report sellers who infringe copyrights!' thread had existed to effectively stomp it out. Our entire hobby would have been an abortion.

Posts: 2919 · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 4:35 am

That could be the auction I won.

Guess I'll be getting rid of mine, though. It's a cool item, but not really the sort of thing I want to hang on to.

Posts: 478 · Posted: Sat Mar 15, 2008 7:19 pm

Mike and Dave run a great Tolkien boardgame site -

http://www.freewebs.com/tolkienboardgamecollecting/

If there is a Tolkien game out there that they don't have, I haven't seen it.

Regards

Mike