So the setting is, Bilbo “aka Burgler” Baggins encounter three Stone Trolls. In the Trollshaws. At night. Without Gandalf (nice going G! :b). So Bilbo tries to pick-pocket a troll, and the wallet which can speak (?!) gives him up. The trolls end up bagging every fargin’ dwarf and start deciding how best to Serve Dwarf (and burrahobbit). Gandalf shows up (yay!) and totally spoofs the trolls till sunrise and they turn to stone. As stone trolls do.
Some 80 years or so later, in our story:
Strider: "There stood the trolls: three large trolls. One was stooping, and the other two stood staring at him. Strider walked forward unconcernedly. ‛Get up, old stone!’ he said, and broke his stick upon the stooping troll. Nothing happened."
Frodo: "Well! We are forgetting our family history! These must be the very three that were caught by Gandalf, quarrelling over the right way to cook thirteen dwarves and one hobbit."
Indeedily doodily. Yet, the trolls have names: Tom, Bill and William Higgins. I can see how JRR Tolkien knew their names - but it's Bilbo writing "There and Back Again - a Hobbit's Story" How did he know there names? Perhaps Gandalf could have - being an Istari as we find out in Two Towers or Silmarillion.
So, post-spoof, Gandalf et al go into a cave and finds a treasure trove! Here is Glamdrimg - the sword of Turgon - A High Elf and the King of Gondolin And priceless other blades -- Orcrist - the fargin Goblin King goes ape-shit when he sees it! And a mithril coat! How does Gandalf (Istari) not know what they've discovered till the mostly-useless Elrond tells them?
Boy, I really hope someone got fired over that blunder. (2nd Simpsons reference)
I think Gandalf was largely playing the fool in those days waiting and watching. Presenting himself as a doddering old man to be mostly ignored and quickly forgotten by all who didn’t need to know the whole truth, including the greed corruptible Dwarves. Only when the truth of the ring became apparent did he need to get frosty.
Gandalf can tell the swords are +5, he just doesn’t know their exact names and history. And the mithril shirt is not in this trove. The shirt was given to Bilbo from the trove at the Lonely Mountain. It was a kingly gift.
Thanks for the correction about the mithril coat Lemur866 I was recently in Scotland and saw a chain metal coat. I imagined how fantastic a mithril coat - that would someday turn away the spear of an Orc Chieftain would be. Gandalf doesn’t tell Bilbo how great it was. It’s Aragorn who says the Orc’s spear would have skewered a Wild Boar. Gandalf does tell Frodo it was worth more than the wealth of the Shire and everything in it.