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The larger amount of 144 does seem to hail from the later 1950s at least... and I think the Elven long year (144 years) had already been published in 1955 in any case...
... but the timeline of the Annals (Annals of Aman and Grey Annals) is written with the lower number in mind, and as far as I know Tolkien never revised Quenta Silmarillion, the Annals, or The Tale of Years, with this greater number in mind.
One of Tolkien's notes to the text 'Aman' seems to suggest that one is to imagine the existing Annals, as re-written in the early 1950s, with the new, much larger number in mind, but I would agree that simply doing this raises problematic questions with respect to the existing chronology.
I think the lower number is the better fit -- which itself still surprises some as far as how much time really passed in a 'year' before Sun Year reckoning.
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