Original Obtention of Promos

[JamesCB]

How were promo cards obtained before people sold 'em on Ebay? Also, why did cards like 0P127 become so RIDONCULOUSLY overpriced and rare?

[Air Power]

It varied. 

0P10 was included with a TCG magazine (Scyre, I believe) as a spoiler for set 2. 

0P12, 0P13, and 0P14 were included in a special box of the extended edition FotR DVD, with a bunch of other stuff (book ends are the only thing I remember).

Some were given out at pre/release events, like 0P19, 0P21, and 0P26.

Others were tournament prizes, like 0P28 and 0P29.

The Countdown Collection (0P30-0P45) were given out with purchase at shops.

The overpriced ones are mostly driven by small supply.  There are a ton of 0P19 out there, and the non-promo version is also easy to find.  There aren't many 0P127, and there aren't many of the non-promo version either.

[TelTura]

Decipher's website had some information regarding most promos: https://web.archive.org/web/20071026114046/http://lotrtcg.fanhq.com/TCG/CardLists.aspx?gameID=7&listID=21

Other information has been collated here: http://www.open-cards.de/node/3238?fbclid=IwAR3VyXnsXEKT-YL1CLDmqN0zXSFMv0B40HinAWsD84_RPxMUuzAdUPnt_-s

[5tein]

In addition to greater demand for certain promos, some promo cards had a smaller print run. In general, P > D > D'Agent promo cards.

For certain later promo cards, Decipher developed a policy for "limited release" (LR) of exactly 500 cards. This began soon after 0P85, and was typically done for promos that were tied to place-based events. I.e. if a promo card had a specific event printed on it, you can assume it was a LR of 500). Which cards were actually LR is on the archived Decipher web site that TelTura referenced above, at least up through DecipherCon 2005.

D promo cards (0D01-0D014) were, afaik, all LR, as the change to D as a new promo card indicator began with the introduction of the LR 500 card printing policy. (Decipher had pre-printed a lot of P cards when this policy was created, which explains why there were still P LR cards after 0P85 and before D01).

Promo cards printed as "D'Agent Exclusive"s, such as 0P127, were created only for D'Agents. I would guess that Decipher thus printed far fewer of these cards -- just enough for the actual number D'Agents around the world. I don't know how many that would have been at that late stage in LOTR TCG's history, but I assume it was far less than <500, making D'Agent promo cards even rarer than D/LR cards.

[TelTura]

One caveat to that is that tournament rewards (including some dAgent ones, I believe) were managed and printed by the international distributors, so the numbers for those might be different (tho higher or lower, I couldn't say).