New Zealand issues Hobbit money
New Zealand has issued coins, all legal tender, marked with ElvenDwarven runes and bearing images of scenes and characters from the new Hobbit film trilogy. The coins are of course collectibles, but New Zealand Post describes them as “legal tender commemorative coins.” That means you could plonk them down on a Kiwi bar and …
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Gawd/ess
One hopes the fanbois world-wide will increase the Kiwi's coffers.
But what a waste of money, overall.
Re: A new munt coin
Ewe cud buy a lut uf chups for theet kind of dosh bro!
Too many brit expats
The Kiwis I knew would never have wasted precious bar time by producing shit like this. This must be a vestige of the colonial occupiers.
Paris : She would never lose her way for a bit of coin.
The Norse runes pictured are actually Dwarven in the Tolkien universe, not Elven ( which looks a lot more like Aramaic )
Calligraphically Challenged
Those are Dwarvish runes, not Elvish. Appropriate really, since "The Hobbit" is all about Dwarfs and hardly any Elves.
I'm curious how Jackson made three movies out of that skinny book. I couldn't make it last six hours if I had to copy it out by hand.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
Maybe they pulled in stuff from other books?
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
The average hollywood script fits on three pages average, so getting the Hobbit to a trilogy isn't that hard, really.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
"I'm curious how Jackson made three movies out of that skinny book. I couldn't make it last six hours if I had to copy it out by hand."
Try again while somebody is waving 500 million dollars under your nose.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
"I'm curious how Jackson made three movies out of that skinny book. I couldn't make it last six hours if I had to copy it out by hand."
As soon as I heard about the Hobbit movie I had a sinking feeling. There is very little in The Hobbit, a book I hold in high regard, that caters to the sensibilities of todays movie goers. I am going to be interested to see how Gandalf engaging the trolls in confusing discourse until the light of day makes them turn to stone is interpreted by Jackson and his CGI department.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
The assault on Dol Guldur by the White Council is going to be included too; it was referred to in the books, but will be detailed in the film.
(They'll probably do it more dramatically than Elrond, Galadriel, and some wizards walking in the gate while Sauron buggers off down an escape tunnel - think Arwen: Warrior Princess™ decapitating orcs and trolls all over the place.)
Won't stop me seeing it though, somewhat annoyingly.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
"I'm curious how Jackson made three movies out of that skinny book. I couldn't make it last six hours if I had to copy it out by hand."
I'm guessing a lot of walking
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
The Cirth was invented by the Elves, and later expropriated by the Dwarfs. The Elves then used Tengwar.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
3 films is a lot of Thorin sitting down, singing about gold.
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
I'm actually quite made that the bugger managed to take a wonderful childrens' book, and turn it into a no-doubt 'epic' trilogy! Filled with unfeasibly CGI hordes and monster dragon armies and probably Sauron making a walk-on cameo, and fuck knows what else?!
So can't help you with the HOW, but the WHY? Money of course, oodles and oodles of lovely cash that these are going to bring in, with the films, and the DVDs, and the toys, and...
Re: Calligraphically Challenged
It's quite simple - the 2nd film is entirely about escaping from the goblin's dungeon
Ian
I've nothing against special coins being made, or whether they are legal tender or not.
But charging anything above their face value - and especially *that* much above their face value - is utterly insane.
I can understand that they may not be cheap to make, and that they are a limited supply that you would want to charge a premium for. But I don't see why they couldn't have simply been given a higher face value that reflects how much they are priced at.
@Graham Triggs: That's probably be because you don't collect coins.
At today's spot price for gold, more than half the cost of the 3 proofs is in the bullion value of the coins. They'll need a fair chunk of overhang to allow for the increasing value of that. Then there's the premium for the proof. They issued them as legal tender because that makes the collectable as official currency instead of as medallions (for whatever reason this tends to make them worth more as collectibles). Typically the size of the coin is set by the size of the officially circulating piece, regardless of the bullion value of the coin, as is the case with US "silver proof" coinage. The sizes for the coins are usually the result of the last date at which coins were actually minted from gold or silver. I think if they changed the face value of the coin they get into other problems because nobody issues legal tender made from precious metals anymore.
If I had the money, I'd probably buy a set for myself. If I really, really had the money, I'd buy sets for my friends too. But I don't have the money. Might get one of the peasant priced pieces though.
Re: @Graham Triggs: That's probably be because you don't collect coins.
"nobody issues legal tender made from precious metals anymore."
Some low denomination coins are still worth more in scrap metal value than the face value of the coin itself - that's why many countries make it illegal to melt down currency and why many are trying to reduce the number of low denominations they mint at all or what they make them out of (especially copper pennies - UK ones changed to alloys of steel in the 90's)
Of course, silver dollars and gold coins went that way decades ago.
(US coins for example: http://www.coinflation.com/ )
ye gads
For crying out loud reg. Please don't waste a brass razoo on that pisswater. (queue beer troll hits). Better you order a fine IPA from one of the hundred or so craft breweries. Big feet welcome. No tui.
Re: ye gads
I don't drink a lot of beer these days, (you can get a reasonable bottle of wine for the cost of a beer at a pub), but can't really complain about Steinlager Pure. Mass market sure, but... It's beer so can't be all that bad
Re: ye gads
Guess the water they use for brewing is cleaner these days. Many decades ago we visited the local Tui brewery on a school trip and I noted that the river was pretty manky looking (must have been all that dairy effluent going into it) - I expect that gave the beer a bit of body. Though even at that time my Dad reckoned that Tui was a lot waterier than it had been.
Tui......
Tui is owned by DB Breweries, an NZ Brewer.
Which is in turn owned by Asia Pacific Breweries.
Which is [currently] a JV between Fraser and Neave and Heineken.
Sad how global brewing works these days.
Sadder still (was: Re: Tui......)
It's all skunked. I don't care what anybody says, methyl mercaptan is NOT a pleasant component of beer.
Re: Sadder still (was: Tui......)
That's the stench agent in LPG!
Re: Sadder still (was: Tui......)
So that's why skunky beer is skunky... I had always thought it was just a baseless perception, never knew the chemistry behind it.
And that's why I love El Reg's forums... you always learn something new!
(non-skunky) cheers!
And remember, children...
...philately will get you nowhere.
GJC
Re: And remember, children...
Are they doing stamps as well?
Re: And remember, children...
Nah. Philatelists were mentioned in the article, though, so I figured, what the hell?
GJC
Re: And remember, children...
Philately put my cousin through college. Don't knock it.
They've done this before.
When the Lord of the Rings movies came out, they did one with Gandalf on it. Ian McKellan joked that it was the first time there'd ever been a coin with a queen on both sides
He's a funny one.
Cirth!=Norse
In Cirth the text is an unpronounceable mess, but in Old Norse runes, it is "middle earth - new ?ealand" - the Z rune is upsides down.
Re: Cirth!=Norse
I did a look-up on the Wikipedia article (yes I was that bored)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cirth
The transliteration into Latin from the "Cirth" or Dwarvish runes gives something like:
Njindndtō ōdbps - Lhōp Njōdtdlnd
Did somebody really screw up this badly on something that's supposed to be a priceless collectable?
Re: Cirth!=Norse
Ah, so that's why I was able to read it. I was thinking "I'm surprised Tolkien just copied real runes".
Re: Cirth!=Norse
> I did a look-up on the Wikipedia article (yes I was that bored)
You were Bored of the Rings?
Typographic inconsistency!
Pity that the n dashes used for the English text are designed to be used for lower-case text. The runes have properly positioned dashes.
Re: Typographic inconsistency!
Yes. Poor attention to detail it looks like, unless this graphic was a rough draft...
Can you still use this method to import gold and avoid certain 'taxes'?
A remember some time ago when silver (or it may have been gold) coins that were legal tender were issued somewhere in europe. As they were legal tender the import value was their face value when crossing the borders, and not their silver worth - which helped get round a nice import loop hole. Can you do that with these? Is it still possible to buy 10 x $10 coins and claim you are only importing goods worth $100 (even though it is thousands of dollar worth of gold)?
Curious is all.
"That means you could plonk them down on a Kiwi bar and demand a nice cold Tui* in return. You'd be mad to do so, however, as the coins sell for well above their face value."
If you're daft enough to order a Tui then you'd probably be daft enough to buy these coins - most beers produced by NZ's two big brewing companies are flavourless crap, probably because the use of hops and malt in their makeup has been cut to the absolute minimum.
Tui!
Interesting that tui is a Thai word for "spit." Gives me a pleasant chuckle here in Crete every time I see one of their planes land.
Tui?
Give me a Stanley Green from the Invercargill Brewery any day.
Occupy Mordor
Because one ring should not be allowed to rule them all
That's great!
So can I ask my boss to get paid in Hobbit money and only pay tax on the nominal value?
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