TolkienGuide 20th Anniversary is coming!

This is going to be the greediest answer possible, but I admit it’s the first thing I thought of when reading the post:

A giveaway of sorts could be cool. A giftcard (for where? Amazon?) or if there’s a semi-spiffy edition of a Tolkien book a founding member wants to part with…I’m not sure…. but some kind of draw could be neat. Maybe my mind want there because I’m ogling last year’s LotR 70th Anniversary release 🙈

I also think an award or two could be neat: ‘Best Tolkien Release: 2006 - 2026’ where the greatest Tolkien release (including newer version of an exiting book or flat-out new release) could be cool. It would be neat to see what the best Tolkien release over the past 20 years would actually be.

Just some of my ideas at the moment.

Some great ideas, thank you.

I won't be giving away any prized possessions personally hehe, mainly because anything I have is not rare and most here will already have any books that I have, but a give away is a great idea and we will look into that.

I like the idea of a best release from the start of tcg to now. There are many wonderful books to choose from.

I will be reaching out to some of our collectors to ask if they would be willing to talk about their favourite pieces from their collections, best memories from the site, etc and that can be done anonymously if that is more comfortable for some among us.

I will also be writing up some of my own thoughts about what tcg has brought to me, how my role has changed and the other opportunities which have come my way, all directly connected to working with our three gracious hosts on various projects.

If others would like to do the same, I am very happy for those people to contact me privately so that we might coordinate posts over a period of time to give each person space for their contributions to be appreciated fully.

So here are my 2 cents for now:
The main resource of the TCG are the people frequenting the site. OnTheTrail is on to it with his thoughts about contacting some individual collectors. I think this sounds like a fantastic idea. I think one could also IN ADDITION to this do a 're-launch' of the sites profile functionality and maybe link some parts of it to a forum thread so that we would have a thread where everyone told us a bit about themselves and their collections. I dont know about you, but personally I find that little is more interesting than learning about other collectors and other collections. Examples of things i would love to learn would be location of collector, scope/focus of collecting, what ppl use the TCG for, favourite books etc.

A couple of talks about Tolkien collecting would be nice as well, e.g. about how it has evolved these last 20 years, by some of the OGs like Beren and Findegil. Maybe we could even get a tour of Findegil’s library?! 😁

And how about a single issue magazine?

Éarendel wrote:

And how about a single issue magazine?

Smashing idea!

love this!

northman wrote:

Éarendel wrote:

And how about a single issue magazine?

Smashing idea!

In addition to other comments: perhaps a Q&A with experts/site admins, virtual gathering to celebrate, or anniversary merchandise. Maybe some sort of a contest where members can show off their most prized items.
Maybe a 20-day celebration where specific site milestones or rare Tolkien items can be highlighted.

Love the idea of a single-issue magazine!

I think a thread in which members post their favorite item(s) in their Tolkien collections and explain why it's their favorite would be fun. For some this might be the rarest or most expensive item they own, for others perhaps it's connected to a personal interaction with a member of the Tolkien family, or maybe it was just a special find in a special bookstore on a special day.

Another thing that I think would be interesting would be if the TCG team and/or longer term members had particular threads or posts that they thought would be of particular interest to newer members (other than those already linked in the main pages through the dropdown menus) but may be more difficult to find by newer members coming to the site. As a newer member myself, I often find super interesting threads through searches or when someone from the team will note that a topic has been discussed before years ago that I was unaware of. Not sure how feasible this sort of thing would be, but if there are any that easily come to mind, it might be interesting to revisit interesting/significant discussions over the years.