There is certainly British precedent for it:
Another question that bugs me is this. Does Aragorn have the Ius Primae Noctis?
With Arwen only.
Based on the Ring FAQ, I was just trying to figure out why the great rings behaved so differently between the various races. I figured that the Elves didn’t turn invisible because they had been to Valinor, and thus sort of already had one foot in the spiritual world. This breaks down for Elrond, admittedly, but wasn’t he a descendant of Earendil? Or am I confused (it wouldn’t be the first time)?
The Dwarves are very different, and I figured some of that difference has got to be because they were created by Aule. Except for Gimli, they have no connection with Valinor, which is as close to the “spirit world” as I can wrap my head around. But they’re very connected with the earth (i.e. Middle-Earth). Men, too, have no connection with Valinor, and Numenor was very difinitely not spiritual, so all I could figure was that Men can connect to the spirit world via the great rings because they were Children of Iluvater.
I’m not sure how cannonical we can consider HOMES, but the idea that Elves could be wraithified throws my entire idea into chaos. It suggests that invisibility and wraithification are not connected, since the Elves are not turned invisible by the great rings, yet apparently can become wraiths. Also, goblin ring-wraiths?!?
Please understand, I’ve never participated in a typical JRRT freak bull session; the only discussions I’ve ever had were here on the SDMB.
Is that true though? I always took it the the great rings could turn anyone invisible, but that the elves and Gandalf had sufficient control over their rings to choose whether to use that power or not. That’s based on a few things.
Firstly LoTR says that the only being the one has no power over is Bombadil and the council of Elrond seemed to deduce that from the fact that he didn’t turn invisible when he wore it. Which suggests that the One, at least, would have turned an elf invisible.
Secondly Sauron was visible while wearing the one, which tells us that those who have command of the great rings can turn the invisibility power on and off.
Thirdly, the elven rings were all themselves invisible when the wearers wished them to be, and visible when they didn’t care to hide them. Which suggests that the extent of their invisibility inducing powers could be moderated by those who could control them.
Finally Gandalf states that only the great rings grant invisibility, and that it is only with full control that the other powers are availability
Nothing concrete in their I admit, but it all suggests that the great rings can all turn their users invisible, but that the invisibility inducing powers can be turned on and off if the wearer can control the ring fully. If that is true then their’s no reason to believe that anybody except Bombadil is immune to that invisibility effect.
I’m going by the FAQ that were cited earlier in this thread, specifically question A2. This source is good enough for Qadgop the Mercotan to cite, so it’s good enough for me.
“Putting up shelves” is that what the geezers are calling it nowadays?
Remember that Sauron never touched the three rings. Not only was he involved in the manufacture of the others, he was able to gather them up and redistribute them, perhaps after messing with their properties a bit: “all those rings that he governed he perverted, the more easily since he had a part in their making.” Invisibility/wraithification could be part of that perversion.
So it’s not surprising that the elven rings have different properties than the others. There is no reason to assume that they would have made invisible or wraithified anyone who wore them.
I’m sort of sorry that Tolkien abandoned the idea of elf-wraiths and goblin-wraiths.
Yep! 
Further thought on the Dwarves: Humans and elves are, perhaps, spirits given bodies, while dwarves are definitely bodies given spirits. So a human or elf wearing a Ring would appear as a spirit (that is to say, not at all, to most eyes), but a dwarf wearing a Ring would appear as an earthy automaton (that is to say, just like a dwarf, to most eyes).
I always thought it was interesting that for at least Galadriel, a Ring itself could become invisible. Note the conversation immediately after Frodo looks in Galadriel’s Mirror. Frodo notices her ring because “as Ringbearer and as one that had borne it on finger and seen that which is hidden, your sight has grown keener”, where Sam could not see her Ring at all.
Hey, if you can recall the Eisenhower administration and you’re still taking time out to boff the wife, more power to you!
I was born in the Eisenhower administration, but don’t recall it.
I was politically aware before I was fully potty-trained. After hearing Ike talk about his concerns about the military-industrial complex, I got concerned about my own plastic army men. 
Yeah, me too. My earliest political memory is seeing JFK on TV, possibly during the missile crisis. The earliest event I can definitely date was November 22, 1963, when I was in first grade.
I don’t recall much about my plastic army men; firecrackers, bottle rockets or a blow torch. I know there was something where they melted like candle wax.
I bet Sauron did that with halflings, however he spelled it.
My earliest political memory would be being worried about some nuclear crisis or another, early in the Reagan administration. Which would put me at probably around 4 (after I was potty-trained, mind you).
I remember seeing Eisenhower waving from a hospital window, but I also remember seeing a Russian tank on TV in East Germany or Hungary, and wondering why Daddy didn’t call them on the phone and tell them to stop. 
Next thing you know, all y’alls will be talking about walking uphill to school through mountains of snow, both ways.
Fighting trolls as they went…
My earliest political memory is the Kennedy-Nixon debate, and being as glad as a four-year-old can be about such things that Kennedy had “won.” But I believe that I hated Nixon in the womb, as that would have been shortly after the HUAC years.
OK, that’s the kind of thing I was trying to get to (and failing miserably). That makes sense to me. Thanks, Chronos.
It never said anywhere all rings made invisible. The one ring made men and hobbits invisible, but wasn’t that sort of a side effect? Because it gave power relative to its wearer and a hobbit with a ring would be like a duck with a gun (utterly unable to use any of its real power).
And apart from the twenty rings of power, it could have been a lesser ring (because it was seemingly unadorned). The three rings never seem to make their wearers invisible.
Also, I feel people are taking the whole “other (spirit) world” thing very literally here. It’s not the matrix. It’s a different plain of consciousness that we mortals can touch by means of (evil) magic but never completely grasp type of thing, IMHO.
Another question - the ring wraiths. They’re permanently invisible. How do they shave?