One Ring to rule them all, One Ring to find them;
One Ring to bring them all and in the darkness bind them.
The One Ring is probably the world’s most famous ring! It originally appeared in J.R.R. Tolken’s The Hobbit (1937) as a magic ring that provided the wearer with invisibility. Tolken changed it into a ring of power in the trilogy The Lord of the Rings (1954–55) and rewrote parts of The Hobbit to align with that narrative. The One Ring, is also referred to as the Ruling Ring and Isildur's Bane.
In the books, The One Ring was forged by the Dark Lord Sauron, in the fires of Mount Doom, to gain power over the free peoples of Middle Earth. However, The One Ring used in Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogy films was designed and created here in Nelson by renowned jeweller Jens Hansen for Weta, under its Warner Bros. license, at this cute wee Gold and Silversmith’s shop. Approximately 40 different rings were made for the films, the most expensive being the 18 carat solid gold 'hero' rings, sized ten for Frodo’s hand and 11 for the chain. To save money the workshop used gold-plated sterling silver for most of the rings. The ring used in close-ups is the real hero ring. In order to capture the ring’s sheen in high definition, that prop was eight inches wide which was too big for Hansen’s tools so instead, a local machine shop made and polished the shape which Hansen’s team then plated.
Danish-born Jens (pronounced ‘Yens’) moved to Auckland in 1952, where he completed a traditional jeweller’s apprenticeship. This was followed by a period in Copenhagen, studying night classes at the School of Applied Arts & Industrial design, and working at the Royal Danish Court Jewellers, Michelsen’s. Jens returned to New Zealand in 1965 – first to Auckland where he studied sculpture and then in 1968 settled in Nelson. Jens received a Queen Elizabeth II Arts Council travel grant to work at the Goldsmiths High School, Copenhagen, in 1975. The workshop’s reputation also secured high profile commissions such as rugby’s Super 14 Trophy and the Air New Zealand Cup. Jen’s sons continued the business after his death in 1999.
To log this virtual: Take a photo of yourself or a ring of some sort with the blue plaque from the shop frontage in the background and include this with your log. Some examples below:
Virtual Rewards 2.0 - 2019/2020
This Virtual Cache is part of a limited release of Virtuals created between June 4, 2019 and June 4, 2020. Only 4,000 cache owners were given the opportunity to hide a Virtual Cache. Learn more about Virtual Rewards 2.0 on the Geocaching Blog.
Ring images: By Peter J. Yost - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=98351026