Wealthy fans of the Lord of the Rings trilogy will have a chance to bid for their favourite props from the film. The largest-known private collection of memorabilia from the Lord of the Rings will be offered on December 5 by Julien’s Auctions in Beverly Hills, Los Angeles. The owner of this impressive collection is Troika Brodsky, the second largest collector of the props from the famous film series, behind director Peter Jackson.
“Uh, it’s been about ten years of pretty consistent detective work, tracking down people who worked on the films and looking for stuff that the studio released officially,” explains says Brodsky. “So a lot of hard work.”
Among the items are costumes and props from major characters and memorable scenes from the trilogy, including Frodo Baggins’ sword, estimated to fetch between $100,000-$200,000, as the highlight of the sale. Also, part of The Trilogy Collection: Props and Costumes from Middle Earth are Gimli’s battleaxe with an estimate of $50,000-$70,000 and wizard Gandalf’s staff with an estimate of $50,000-$70,000, as well as Aragorn’s sword, estimated between $50,000-$70,000. There will also be props used by the evil Ringwraiths, and prosthetic hobbit feet, helmets, shields, boots, vests, arrows and more.
The entire collection is expected to fetch between $1 million and $1.5 million from the sale of 80 lots of memorabilia.
“It has been more than a decade since the first of the trilogy films was released and in that time only a handful of items from these films have ever been publicly offered for sale,” Martin Nolan, executive director of Julien’s Auctions, said.