How did you find out SSW was going to do LOTR pieces?

I had no idea until right before ROTK came out in 2003 that these pieces existed because of just your typcial what the heck internet search. Then it was all down hill from there.

How did you all find out?

The Fellowship Extended Box set with that small yet perfect Argonath. Oh, along with that little handy SSW brochure they threw in! lol

I saw those when they came out but never bought them till way later after I knew about SSW. I just thought they where a free gift new line did.

Summer of 2003, after getting the Fellowship extended edition from my friends for birthday, I searched the web for Weta, and there I finally sound Sideshowcollectibles

Didn't order anything until later than fall...

I found out through the flyer with the Fellowship EE. Initially ordered the Balrog but thought 300 Euro (+/- $375) too much at the time .

Got myself the Moria Orc Swordsman as a birthday present later on and was sold to SS/W collecting.

2001. Early 2001. I had to have found out about it from TheOneRing.net. Sideshow was also distributed through Diamond back then and the first few waves were preordered through a comic book shop from Diamond's PREVIEWS catalog. Somewhere I have all the internet brochures that list all the pieces that were planned - if you haven't seen the original plans there were a lot TON of statues planned with a ridiculous amount scheduled.

Then there were a lot of delays. Not only because of realistic production demands, but also September 11 put a complete halt to shipping nationwide for a good while. Obviously the effects were NOT as important as everything else that was going on, but it did drastically affect shipping for a considerable few months.

I missed a lot of grails but I also managed to snag a few (Balrog $300 Orthanc $90) so I mostly think I was lucky to be there from the beginning!
Thank you Sideshow and Weta!

And to think of this board and all the friends I've made here! Its been an incredible experience.

I already had a Sideshow usergroup on yahoo before the LotR films were a glimmer in PJ's eye. So I guess I found out about it in the weekly newsletter.

And Thanks to Dave for making the Forum happen!

Sideshow makes LOTR pieces??

i got to know after seeing some advert. but i cant recall where from.

could be the dvd. at that time, the balrog was still available for retail on the site.

and it was deemed too expensive for a collectible.

I found out about SSW doing LOTR right after I watched FOTR (watched it very long after release due to some exams I was having). I thought it was a great movie and wanted to see if there are anything I can collect. SSW LOTR was so new then that my retailer doesn't even know about it and they only carry SSW because I kept pestering them about it.

Unfortunately, I was just a student back then, so I didn't get to collect much. I remember one day I was asked by my retailer if I wanted a Balrog and I balked at the $300 price tag. I told him that it's not a major character and people would be crazy to spend $300 on it, no matter how cool it looks! Worst 'collecting' decision I ever made... sigh...

Thru the official New Line LOTR and TORN websites. Been lurking in those places as soon as I found out about the movies being made (around May of 2001). After seeing both FOTR and TTT, I felt I needed something tangible (other than the movies themselves) to commemorate my experience. Clicked on Sideshow thru TORN. The rest, as they say, is history.

Ran across their items up for sale at entertainmentearth. Picked up Gandalf the Grey statue then checked out their website from the flier included with the statue. The rest is history.

I read an article on The Digital Bits (DVD site) about the Weta statues coming out. I think that was around August 2001, and the movies hadn't even come out yet. I thought it was strange to buy statues of an unreleased film that may very well stink. I forgot all about them for a while after that, and I thought the Argonath bookends were tacky, so I didn't buy them.

I started seeing pictures of people's collections in late 2003, but I still thought it was a bit too geeky to have statues in my apartment. I made the decision in late 2004 to buy a few for a dedicated home theater setup (I'll have one a lot like what Gruson has whenever I buy my first house), and it's been downhill since then. Now I have statues/props everywhere. It can be a bit embarassing at times to have friends over and try to explain why I have "dolls" of SW characters (Han and Luke 1/4's). My girlfriend got a good laugh about the 40 Year-Old-Virgin movie recently.

I found out about the SSW statues around August of 2001 while flipping through a collector mag in San Luis while on vacation with my family.

I bought Frodo and nearly bought the moria orc swordsman, but at the time, $125 a pop was pretty steep. I didn't get back into collecting until around the summer of 02, I believe, when the wiki statue went on sale. Of course, I passed on the wiki and bought GTG, RWOS, and the galadhrim statue. Since getting the RWOS, my spending habits have steadily increased...good for my collection, I suppose. Damn you RWOS.

I actually walked into a Balrog in a local shop when I was looking for a present for my girlfriend (she liked Disney and that store had a large collection of WDCC statues) and even though it was expensive as hell (somewhere around 500 euro) I just HAD to have it. I still curse myself for not emptying the entire store then, they had the Moria Orcs, Aragorn, Sam&Bill etc, all at retailprices. But I got my Balrog

Through Sideshows site. I've been visiting there before they had LoTR. I think it was Spinal Tap figures that first drew me in.