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Lord of the Rings – Middle Earth Toys
(Toy Vault) 1998 – 2000

Before Peter Jackson brought his epic Lord of the Rings trilogy to cinemas in 2001, all we had were the books and a couple of 1970’s era cartoons. Since the LOTR licensing rights were out there for the taking, a brand new company called Toy Vault secured the rights to make LOTR toys in 1998 with their Middle Earth Toys. The toy line was a small one, that contained only nine characters. Of those nine characters, there were several variants created of each, mostly as a cost saving measure. This line proved to be a solid overall effort, but only consisted of a few waves of figures, and no other accessories to speak of.

For more information about Toy Vault’s (LOTR) Middle Earth Toys line, see bottom of the page for a complete summary.

Lord of the Rings (September 1998): Middle Earth Toys – Series 1

The first series of Lord of the Rings figures consisted of only two characters, with Gandalf and the Balrog. There were several variants made of each figure. Both of these initial figures were released with lovely card art, painted by famed fantasy artist Daniel Horne. Both figures would be re-released as part of the mass market wave in 1999 with the updated bister pack card.
FUN FACT: Both, Gandalf The Grey and the Balrog of Kazad-Dum figures were originally supposed to include connecting pieces of the Mines of Moria bridge they clashed on in Fellowship of the Ring, but were dropped due to budget issues.

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Lord of the Rings (February 1999): Middle Earth Toys – Series 2

Toy Vault’s second wave of figures once again included only two characters, with several variants made of each. The two characters were Frodo the Hobbit and Ugluk the Orc. It should be noted that only four figures of each character were offered in this wave, in contrast to the five offered in Wave One. Both of these initial figures were released with lovely card art, painted by famed fantasy artist Daniel Horne. Both figures would be re-released as part of the mass market wave later in the year with the updated bister pack card.
FUN FACT: This series was originally supposed to be Frodo and the Lord of the Nazgul, who was replaced at the last minute by Ugluk due to production issues with the Nazgul.

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Lord of the Rings (1999): Middle Earth Toys – Mass Market Series 1 & 2 – TRU & KB

This newly packaged series consisted of the first four characters from Wave 1 and 2, but released in a more bland looking card that was sold through mass-market retailers like Toys R Us and KB toys. Unlike the first two waves, this wave only contained one figure of each released character so far, with the Fire Balrog, Frodo the Hobbit, Gandalf the Wizard and Ugluk the Orc. They also did not include the light-up features from earlier waves and all had a common card back for every figure.

Lord of the Rings (September 1999): Middle Earth Toys – Series 3

Toy Vault’s third wave of figures once again included only two characters, with variants made of each. The two characters were Gimli the Dwarf and Gollum the Evil Hobbit. As with Series 2, only four figures of each character were offered in this wave, in contrast to the five offered in Wave One. Both of these figures were released with the new updated black bister pack card.
FUN FACT: This series was originally supposed to be Eowyn and the Lord of the Nazgul (moved from Series 2), but the Nazgul figure would be released as a Deluxe Figure and Eowyn never saw the light of day from Toy Vault, despite advancing past the sculpting phase.

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Lord of the Rings (September 2000): Middle Earth Toys – Series 4

Toy Vault’s fourth and final wave of figures once again included only two characters, with variants made of each. The two characters were Galadriel and The Wight. As with the previous series, only four figures of each character were offered in this wave, in contrast to the five offered in Wave One. Both of these figures were released with the new updated black bister pack card.
FUN FACT: This series was originally supposed to include Elrond, but Toy Vault went with Galadriel in his place. There were plans for additional waves of new figures, but they never made it to release.

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Lord of the Rings – Middle Earth Toys (March 2000): Deluxe Figures

The Lord of the Nazgul was a figure that had been planned since the beginning of the toy line back in Series one, but its release kept getting pushed back due to the design issues. This figure was finally released as a Deluxe Figure in March of 2000, and came in three different versions. In addition to the basic Lord of the Nazgul, there were also Black Captain and Black Rider variants. The figure stood 7″ tall, had 12 points of articulation and came with cool looking glowing eyes.

Lord of the Rings – Middle Earth Toys (1998- 2000): Accessories

Toy Vault did not release any other action figure related accessories for their Lord of the Rings line.

Before Peter Jackson brought his Lord of the Rings trilogy to us in 2001, all we had were the books and a couple of 1970’s era cartoons. Since the LOTR licensing rights were out there for the taking , a brand new company called Toy Vault secured the rights to make LOTR toys in 1998. The toy line was a small one, with only nine unique figures. Of those nine, there several variants of each figure produced throughout Toy Vault’s three year run of Middle Earth Toys. This line proved to be a solid overall effort, but only consisted of a few waves of figures, and no other accessories to speak of.

Toy Vault’s Lord of the Rings series of Middle Earth Toys consisted of four waves with two characters each. There was also one Deluxe Figure and no other accessories to speak of. The first wave consisted of Gandalf and the Balrog, while the second wave had Frodo and Ugluk. There were several variants made of each figure and all four were re-released on the newly designed black cards in late 1999. The third wave had Gimli and Gollum, while the final series included Galadriel and the Wight. Once again, a few different versions were produced of these figures as well. Toy Vault also released the Lord of the Nazgul as a Deluxe Figure, along with a couple of variants….as they do. The variants of each figure were fun to see and collect, and were done as more of a cost control measure more than anything else. This line sold well enough to continue additional waves at first, but slowed towards the end. Another issue for Toy Vault was Toy Biz had just secured the rights to the new Lord of the Rings live action movies and they were going big with the new line .

The packaging for Toy Vault’s Lord of the Rings line started out with each figure being released on beautifully drawn cards, painted by famed fantasy and role playing game artist Daniel Horne. All figures in the first two waves were released in this format before switching over to the nearly all black card with each figure sitting inside of a large gold ring. It was a shame that Toy Vault didn’t stick with the earlier packaging because it was truly a wonderful effort to capture the beauty and essence of each character. The black packaging that was used for the final two waves seemed very bland and lacked creativity. It should be noted the Deluxe Figure, Lord of the Nazgul, was released in a very attractive dark blue box that opened up to reveal the figure inside. Many of these toys can be easily found at reasonable prices on the secondary market nowadays, making this a fairly inexpensive line to collect.