Trotter wrote:

SamwiseTheBrave wrote:

Only about 1,500 copies of the edition were ever printed across two impressions, and it is believed fewer than 50 survive today.

Is the consensus really that only 3% of the original 1,500 remain?

Yes, the TolkienGuide was not quoted, but that figure comes from this site.

Worth saying, that figure was pure speculation - and us on TCG musing about it - it was never intended to be something quoted as a fact, but has been picked up as something to be touted by sellers as if it was evidence-based (beyond just being an extrapolation from the copies we know of and have seen transacted). With the further evidence of time, I suspect the extant population is actually likely to be much higher than that (also speculation!).