My personal memory: we would get 6+ of these on just a quick jaunt down to royals on live.
Corroboration:
http://everquest.allakhazam.com/db/item.html?item=521 noted as dropping commonly off of sarnaks in chardok.
Here: Around 25 hours exping in chardok on live99, from zone in down to korocust / bridge, as well as on the beta99 server before launch clearing out graveyard and royals prep areas - I have seen 1 drop.
This seems extremely rare compared to actual live EQ.