How many years did Gollum have the ring
Executive summary
Gollum possessed the One Ring for roughly five centuries—commonly stated as “about 500 years” or “nearly 500 years” in Tolkien scholarship and reference entries [1] [2]. That long span is what twisted Sméagol into Gollum and explains why, despite losing the Ring to Bilbo, he remained obsessed with it for the rest of his life [3] [4].
1. The simple answer: about 500 years
The most direct and repeatedly cited figure is that Gollum held the Ring for roughly 500 years (phrased as “500 years” or “nearly 500 years” across sources), a period that the One Ring’s article and multiple Tolkien-focused discussions give as standard [1] [2] [5].
2. How that number is derived: story chronology and summaries
Tolkien’s internal chronology and secondary summaries place Déagol’s finding of the Ring in the long Third Age timeline, Sméagol’s murder of Déagol and seizure of the Ring shortly thereafter, and Bilbo’s meeting with Gollum in T.A. 2941—events that result in an interval of several centuries between Sméagol’s acquisition and Bilbo’s taking (timeline material summarized in fan Q&A and chronologies) [5] [4]. Reference articles condense that chronology into the “nearly 500 years” figure used in encyclopedic treatments [1] [2].
3. Possession versus use: he owned it far longer than he wore it
A crucial nuance is that possession and wearing are not the same: commentators and canonical notes emphasize that Gollum seldom wore the Ring during those centuries, living hidden in dark caves where invisibility was less necessary, which is why he never became a Ring-wraith like Men (sources explicitly note Gollum “possessed the ring for 500 years” yet “rarely wore the Ring”) [1] [6]. In The Lord of the Rings itself Gandalf notes Gollum “possessed the Ring so long” yet “it was long since he had worn it much,” underscoring the distinction [6].
4. Short-term possession in The Lord of the Rings and other oddities
By contrast, during the events of The Lord of the Rings Gollum’s physical custody of the Ring is almost negligible—he regains it only briefly near Mount Doom, for “a few seconds” before falling into the chasm—so readers must separate the centuries-long era of possession from the short moments of physical control late in the narrative [6]. Secondary sources and timelines also flag that the Ring itself had lain lost in Anduin for over two millennia after Isildur before Déagol found it, a different temporal layer that sometimes confuses casual retellings [7].
5. Ambiguities and why sources phrase it differently
Different sources use “about,” “nearly,” or a flat “500 years” because Tolkien’s primary texts give narrative anchor points rather than repetitive calendar arithmetic; encyclopedias and fandom timelines synthesize those anchors into the round figure [1] [5]. Where scholarship or fan Q&As speculate about the Ring’s life-extending effects on Gollum, they lean on the same half-millennium span to explain his deformity and longevity, but those interpretive claims rest on reading Tolkien’s text rather than a single explicit sentence declaring an exact count [2] [4].
6. Bottom line and its significance
Bottom line: canonical and reference sources converge on the conclusion that Gollum possessed the One Ring for roughly 500 years (phrased variously as “about” or “nearly” 500 years), a duration central to understanding his corruption, split personality, and obsession—while remembering that actual wearing of the Ring was sporadic and his late-life physical control of it was fleeting [1] [6] [4].