Mind Games

It's quite fun to mess with people's heads.

I don't mean "Gaslighting" - not by any means - but it's satisifes my rather odd sense of humor to see someone do a double- or triple-take when they see something and can't quite believe what they are seeing.

For instance, take the One Ring. Undoubtedly, you've seen the various incarnations of this - from the $2 version that came with a bookmark, to the Noble Collection edition, which looks much better, but for almost $400, doesn't really look like the movie version.

Most of the versions I had seen were links from other LOTR sites, and all of them were disappointing in one way or another - so I tried "one ring" replica in Google.

BAM!

The very first link was exactly what I was looking for! Jens Hansen - Contemporary Gold & Silversmith of New Zealand was the jeweler who was commissioned to make the One Ring in all its guises for the movies and (drum roll, please) was offering replicas of the Movie Ring for sale. The business is now run by Jens' son Halfdan, who explained that these versions
don't have the Black Speech writing on them - just a plain gold band. Just a plain massively evil, fell-beast ruling, world-dominating gold band.

The first time I wore this, no one really noticed it; however, by the second day, I was getting stares. By the third day, I was getting multiple conversations like this:

"Umm ... you didn't get married, did you?"

"No."

"When I saw that on your finger, I thought it was, umm..."

"Was what?"

"You know, it looks sorta like a wedding band ..."

At that point I would pull the ring off my finger and drop it in their hand. Their responses were nearly identical:

"HOLY CRAP! It's the One Ring! Where did you get it?"

Which was exactly the response I was looking for. Hehehehe.

The only exception was my first boss - when he saw it, right off the bat he said, "Wow, that's a beautiful One Ring. Can I see it?"

Then again, Alex and I have spent a lot of time discussing M-Theory, so I'm not exactly surprised ...

After watching LOTR, I re-read the trilogy (and the Silmarillion) and I really wanted the type of ring that was described in the books as being given by Finrod to Barahir, but not a replica of the rings that were floating around on the internet (and which I have and wear with my costume!). I wanted something that I could wear every day.

So I called Halfdan.

We talked about the design, the materials (white gold, gold, Biron emeralds) and I left the rest to him. This is what I got:


(You can't quite make it out in the photo above, but there are golden blades of grass sweeping around the sides of the serpents and beneath the main jewel.) I get the same level of disbelief with this "canon" ring -- at first, the thought is that it is a claddagh ring, but a closer look usually brings a widening of eyes and another exclamation of amazement. I had one friend that didn't realize the snakes had emerald eyes until last week when the sun hit the ring and the eyes sparkled!

I'm having fun!