The Royal Mint has officially launched its first collectable 50p coin celebrating The Lord of the Rings, featuring a technical innovation that projects a hidden image of the Eye of Sauron when struck by light. Forged in Llantrisant, Wales, the release marks the 25th anniversary of Peter Jackson’s Academy Award-winning film, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. Produced in partnership with Warner Bros. Discovery Global Consumer Products, the coin serves as the initial entry in a planned seven-coin collection spanning the next three years.
The reverse side of the coin, designed by veteran Royal Mint product designer Thomas T. Docherty, centres on the One Ring inscribed with its iconic Elvish lettering in Black Speech. The obverse side displays the official coinage portrait of His Majesty The King. While the standard Brilliant Uncirculated editions are available at a base price of £15, the premium precious metal variants, including the Gold Proof collection priced at £2,420 per coin and the Silver Proof variants at £92.50 per coin, completely sold out within hours of their morning release.
The technical highlight of the launch is the debut of computational caustic engineering on a publicly available UK coin. Craftspeople engineered the metal surfaces to precisely manipulate and focus reflected light, projecting the distinct shape of the Eye of Sauron onto an adjacent target surface. However, this premium light-focusing feature is strictly restricted to the premium proof-standard editions, meaning the entry-level £15 uncirculated coins do not contain the physical architecture required to reveal the Dark Lord’s gaze.
The timing of the collection also signals an early start to the cinematic trilogy’s quarter-century milestone. Although Peter Jackson’s The Fellowship of the Ring premiered in theatres in December 2001, this May 2026 release marks the start of a long-term rollout strategy. The remaining six coins in the series, allocated as two dedicated designs for each film in the trilogy, will debut sequentially over the next three years to align with the subsequent historical release dates of The Two Towers and The Return of the King.
Rebecca Morgan, Director of Commemorative Coin at The Royal Mint, said in a statement:
Even the most devoted Fellowship of collectors couldn’t have imagined a coin quite like this. To mark 25 years since Peter Jackson first brought Middle-earth to the big screen, The Royal Mint have unveiled a collectable 50p coin to celebrate the anniversary. What makes this coin truly special is its hidden secret, our craftspeople here in Wales have used innovative caustic technology, a first on any UK coin, to engineer the surface with extraordinary precision, focusing light to reveal a hidden image of the Eye of Sauron within the One Ring.”
For enthusiasts looking to collect the entire sequence, subscription options are available through the mint’s portal. Full subscribers receive a complimentary display card case detailing the map of Middle-earth to house the upcoming seven-part fellowship of coins. While the gold and silver proof tiers have completely exhausted their strict mintages, the standard uncirculated and limited-edition colour-printed variants remain open for traditional orders.
Quick Links
- Which official Lord of the Rings coins can you still buy?
Independently covering coins since 2013. Our archive includes 11 entries connected to this topic.
Latest entry: June 2026
