Original Release Date: December 9, 2003

Number of Discs: 3

Packaging:

Boxed set containing three individual CDs in jewel cases

Cover art from pre-productions drawing by Alan Lee

Kungfuyu wrote: Inside the packaging, there is a little foldable nook used to hold the cards in place on the left of the FOTR disc. It is really frustrating to get the CD's back in place without bending the nook back towards the back of the box, thus taking up space and not allowing the CD cases to be flush with the box. And if the cards aren't in the box, the CDs are really loose.

Extras:

Liner notes are the same for each movie's CDs except that the cover art of FOTR's notes are different than the previous US releases.

Online content is the same as the standard jewel case editions

Collectible Cards: 19 cards plus 1 blank card.

6 FOTR cards

13 ROTK cards

Label: Reprise/WEA

On Site Info:

Cue by Cues: Each cue by cue provides a description of the music including identification of themes being used, an accounting of on screen action, lyrics being sung, and source text for those lyrics.
First track cue by cues:

FOTR

TTT

ROTK

Off Site info:

Official Site

Comments:

Alternate versions: Enya's site says, "A limited edition gold-lettered black leatherette slipcase (release date: 12/09/2003) was available only via The Lord of the Rings soundtrack website. It was specially released to house the limited edition soundtrack of The Fellowship of the Ring, together with those of The Two Towers and The Return of the King."

The official site does have an image of a black leatherette cover on it's LOTR Trilogy Set page but it's hard to tell if this cover was ever available. Kungfuyu noted that, although the 'buy' link is dead, the 'buy' links for all the sets are, in fact, the UPC  code. The UPC code for this black leatherette cover is the same as for the golden brown cover.

Doug Adams was consulted and said that he didn't have any direct knowledge but speculated it could be an early design for this set that was replaced by the one we see below. Considering the UPC code info and the fact that I can find no evidence (outside of the comment on Enya's site and the image shown there and on the official site) that a black leatherette set existed, both Kungfuyu and I agree that this may be the case.