The Seven and the Nine

[Alfirin]

Originally Posted by Inziladun

The quote to which you refer sounds familiar, but I haven't yet been able to place it. Gandalf does make it clear in other places though that he believes only some of the Seven still remained.

FOTR The Shadow of the Past

FOTR The Council of Elrond

The last quote in and of itself is odd, since the Nazgul don't keep their rings; it is made clear elsewhere that they have turned them back over to Sauron and he is wearing them (unless you interpret the sentence in the sense of "the nine rings keep the Nazgul enslaved/alive (which is true, but not exactly pertinent to the matters being discussed when Gandalf makes the statement.) Though it is possible Gandalf doesn't know this fact at the time and or never knew it. (It's not like he has intimate knowledge of the day to day minutae of Nazguldom, or has had much, if any opportunity to study them up close. The one time we know he went face to face with them, he was presumably too busy keeping alive to notice if they actually had rings on their fingers.)