Thanks for the update. Seems what they told me earlier (300+ available nationwide) may have been erroneous. Gonna stop by my MB dealer tomorrow and order mine. According to my owners manual, the car came with 2 fobs, 1 "valet key" and 1 "flat key". The manual suggests you "carry the flat key with you" and also suggests keeping it in your wallet (very thorough, those Germans). I bought my E300 from the original owner. I got 1 working fob, 1 non-working broken fob w/working metal key and nothing else. I guess they lost track of the other 2 keys somewhere along the way. Oh well. The owners manual is pristine, w/MB leather booklet and they managed to save the original window sticker (bonus!)
Will report back........