I think of all the movie tie-in things I've seen and heard of, this is the one that boggles my mind.* Not that they're minting these, but that they'll actually be legal tender -- technically at any rate (no one's likely to buy $10.00 worth of, say, hobbit snacks** with a one-ounce gold coin, I suspect).
Of course, the news that they're also going to temporarily rename their nation's capital as a movie tie-in also induces boggling, so maybe I'm just easily boggled these days.
Here's the link, courtesy Janice (thanks, JC!):
And for details on specific coins, check here:
http://stamps.nzpost.co.nz/thehobbit
--turns out they go for as little as $29.90 and as much as $3695 (for the one-ounce gold coin, roughly equivalent of the old double eagle) or the modern US mint's Buffalo (which currently goes for about $1840, roughly $100 above the price of gold).
Perhaps the (non-silver, non-gold) Radagast coin is more within my budget . . .
--John R.
*ranking right up there with the Lord of the Nazgul piggybank from the awful Bakshi film thirty-plus years ago
**which is not a licensed product yet, that I know of -- though they did eventually offer Scooby Snacks for sale in stores, so who knows?
3 comments:
You wouldn't have a photo of the Nazgul piggybank, would you?
Unfortunately not: I saw it in the window of a (now long-gone) bookstore on Wisconsin Avenue in Milwaukee, but (a) I was a poor graduate student at the time and (b) it was pug-ugly, so I didn't buy it. Sometime later I mentioned it to Gary Hunnewell, who immediately sent me back to look for it on his behalf, but too late. Nowadays I can appreciate the sheer awfulness of the thing being oddly appealing (as in never-believe-this-unless-they-see-it), but too late: never seen one again.
--John R.
Ah well - maybe it's a good thing you don't!
Andrew Wells
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