How Did Gollum Lose the Ring?

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Originally Posted by Morwen

I don't think it could have been out of his possession for very long i.e. more than an hour or so. As Legate points out, though Gollum no longer wore the Ring frequently, he still needed to check on it constantly.

This need to constantly check on his Precious leads me to think that the period of time between Gollum losing the Ring and Bilbo finding it must have been short indeed.

Precisely. From the sources we have, we know that it was "just a few hours":

Originally Posted by The Hobbit

Only a few hours ago he had worn it, and caught a small goblin-imp.

[Bêthberry]

How did Gollem lose the Ring?

Dropped call? Tired of the dialtone?

Sorry, I now return you to serious topic.

[Boo Radley]

So, we figure the Ring sensed Bilbo's presence and figured he was it's best hope for getting out of there?
Sounds resonable to me.

Scary, but resonable.

[Morwen]

Originally Posted by Boo Radley

So, we figure the Ring sensed Bilbo's presence and figured he was it's best hope for getting out of there?
Sounds resonable to me.

Scary, but resonable.

Gandalf thought that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring and not by its maker. So there may have been other powers at work allowing the Ring to leave Gollum and find Bilbo.

[Legate of Amon Lanc]

Actually, it was not the will of the Ring to go to Bilbo. This is what I said about the quoted passage, that what I quoted wasn't the main point of the debate. For the question how it was posed at that time, it seemed sufficent. But okay, if you mention this, I'll find even the rest According to what Gandalf says, there was "another power at work". The Ring wanted to get out of the cave, but...

..."What, just in time to meet Bilbo?" said Frodo. "Wouldn't an Orc have suited it better?"
"It is no laughing matter," said Gandalf. "Not for you. It was the strangest event in the whole history of the Ring so far: Bilbo's arrival just at that time, and putting his hand on it, blindly, in the dark.
There was more than one power at work, Frodo. The Ring was trying to get back to its master. It had slipped from Isildur's hand and betrayed him; then when a chance came it caught poor Deal, and he was murdered; and after that Gollum, and it had devoured him. It could make no further use of him: he was too small and mean; and as long as it stayed with him he would never leave his deep pool again. So now, when its master was awake once more and sending out his dark thought from Mirkwood, it abandoned Gollum. Only to be picked up by the most unlikely person imaginable: Bilbo from the Shire!
Behind that there was something else at work, beyond any design of the Ring-maker. I can put it no plainer than by saying that Bilbo was meant to find the Ring, and not by its maker. In which case you also were meant to have it. And that maybe an encouraging thought.

I think I have to add here that interestingly, for some really unexplainable reason I somewhat uncosciously "skipped" this part for many years, meaning that when reading it, it didn't ultimately come to me what it actually means. I never even thought of it - I didn't even pose myself any question, you know, like "how come that Bilbo was meant to have it"... I just never thought of it. While it is surely an important moment, for Frodo at least. But here you see, there was "something else at work", not just the will of the Ring - Bilbo was meant to have the Ring, and it was not the design of the Ring's maker. Intriguing.

[Boo Radley]

You know, I had completely forgoten about that speech by Gandalf.

That is interesting!