Timbur the Tiny (Does Sandal drop?) North Karana

[runicNomad]

I have been hunting for 3 days and gotten Timbur 3 times and all 3 times I received the string.
I recall the string being the actual rare drop as it is more usable than the quest item.
I am doing it for the old skool quest which ios more achievement than anything else.

My question is does anyone know or can anyone confirm that the Sandal does indeed drop and not just the string every time? Wiki says so but Wiki is often just a copy paste from Alla...

thanks

[Nizzarr]

It does drop, I got it on the red server last year and finished said quest you are trying to finish!

[runicNomad]

ok damn well i guess its the inverse here with string being common and sandal being rare meh...

[nilbog]

This drops. They are currently 50/50 drops.

Any evidence to distinguish common/rare?

[Sunderfury]

Was working through bug reporting finding things to resolve. Looked into this guy a little.

http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/npc.html?id=3712&p=1#comments
His ZAM page seems to indicate he dropped the Sandal much more often (which makes sense if he is a rare spawn that drops a quest component). Maybe 80% sandal, 20% string?

Also seems like his comments indicate he was super rare with a lot of people questioning if he still existed, but seems his spawn rate was later increased on 10/31/01.
Oct 31 2001
Tiny has been fixed on on the spawn table starting the 10/31/01 patch. So he should be around a whole lot more. Too bad they havn't made the scimtar worth having. ;/

http://www.tski.co.jp/baldio/patch/20011031.html
Here the cleverly phrased patch note:
A con man in The Temple of Solusek Ro has been warned by the gods not to tease people about special weapons.
Forest Barley can be found now, if you like that sort of thing.
There are fewer blind frogloks in Guk.
Small trees will fall more frequently in one of the Karanas.
Be careful in your travels over the next few days. Something is amiss on Norrath.

Did a quick dig on spawn time and found this reference:
10/31/01: (https://groups.google.com/forum/#!searchin/alt.games.everquest/%22practice$20runes%22|sort:date/alt.games.everquest/0YlggU2ap2I/-44GoA8Kn38J)
All the references can be found on the Dev board or the Testing boards.
The bard Lambent quest NPC hinted at a quest weapon in his text - that text
is gone. The Forest Barley for the second Holy Symbol of Brell Serilis had
gone missing off the Kith vendor where it was found - it's back now. Froglok
Eyes for making practice runes weren't dropping very often at all - the drop
rate was upped. Timbur the Tiny had to be killed for a quest in game, but
even with constant clearing of his PH he was a once-per-month spawn. That's
been upped to once per week.

Comments made on 10/31 (same day as patch), so not clue if the 1/week is accurate or they read some Dev board comment to get that info.