An old number from the Lord of the Rings DVD led a fan to a 2001 chess set

Sometimes the most interesting finds hide not in online stores, but in old things long written off. That is exactly what happened with this story about a Lord of the Rings chess set that resurfaced more than two decades after release thanks to a phone number that survived in an old promo booklet.

A fan of the franchise found a sealed copy of the Return of the King DVD at a thrift store, along with all the inserts that typically came packed with discs in the early 2000s.

Among the pamphlets was a merch catalog with collectible figures and phone numbers listed for ordering. Just for fun I tried calling it thinking it would work and turns out they still make sculptures and toys for other movies and they also still have some of the 2001 collections of lotr.

That's how the chess set, released back during Peter Jackson's original trilogy, was tracked down and ordered.

Themed chess sets based on fantasy franchises were a standard part of marketing for major releases in the early 2000s, and Lord of the Rings collections came out in several batches, each tied to one of the three films in the trilogy.

Metal figures styled after the saga characters were packaged as gift editions and sold through specialty catalogs rather than regular retail, which is why sets like these are almost impossible to find for sale today.

It's kind of ugly and chunky but it's so cool. The metal pieces turned out to be heavy and pretty sensitive to handle, making this more of a collectible display piece than a board meant for regular games.

Also I would've preferred having characters from ROTK but it only came with the first movie characters set. Had to pay like a lot of money to get an extra set of pieces from the other two movies. Such a set can be ordered for $495, while extra figure sets from the other two films in the trilogy go for $195 each.