Good guys of LOTR clueless?

[Earendilyon]

Originally Posted by Maédhros

Many elven rings were made. Well, he could disregard the 3 elven rings from Galadriel, Elrond and the one he had. Also, he could disregard those from the Ringwraiths. So that leaves us with those from the dwarves (7) and the One Ring. From those 7 dwarven rings, he knew that one of those was recovered or destroyed by Sauron when Gandalf paid a visit to the Necromancer. So that leaves us Six (6) rings.
Bilbo had the Ring in the shire in 2942 TA. It is in 3001 TA where Gandalf suspects that it might be the One Ring. There is a lapse of 59 years.
The chances of Bilbo's Ring being the One Ring is: 1/7. So your point is that he spent those 59 years in trying to find out more about Bilbo's Ring? I'm sorry but that is just plain incompetence.


When Isildur was killed, how many search parties were involved in looking into his remains or those of the battle? How come that Saruman was able to find so many things in there?
To me their actions was like: Hey Isildur took the Ring, oh well.

The Silm indeed states "Now the Elves made many rings". Twenty rings (1+3+7+9) doesn't sound 'many rings' to me. I always figured there were more rings than these. Bilbo's ring could have been one of these lesser rings, making it much harder for Gandalf to find out which ring Bilbo's indeed was.

As to Isildur, The Disaster of the Gladden Fields in the Unfinished Tales says: "No trace of his body was ever found by Elves or Men." suggesting that they did indeed search for him. It also says that "his mail, helm, shield and great sword (but nothing else) had been found", further suggesting he was searched for.