What is your definition of "RARE?"
 

I have seen the term "rare" overused especially in ebay listings. I have also been corrected by members when I call a card "rare" they tell me I am wrong, even though I scarcley see it for sale, or at a fair price. So I got to ask, what do you consider rare? Meaning not what cards do you consider rare, I mean what is your criteria for a rare card? How much struggle do need to find a card before you finally call it "rare."
For me if I can't get an item in the condition I desire for a proper price for 2 months or more I consider it quite rare, but I have been barked at for considering something like that rare if I have to wait a couple months.
I am also asking about the rarity of buying something not seeing something, this thread is about how rare it is to buy an item.
Also please do not consider super overpriced BINs or auctions, let's pretend like those do not exist in this discussion, because those are not buyable in my perception. Just as good as not being for sale.:D

I'd say anything with a known population of under 250 would be rare... Then there are things out there that there are less than 50 or so, and those are so well known they don't even need to be called rare.

Rare
 

My defintition of rare would range from unique (1) to very rare (2-5) to simply rare (6-15).

Let me add that my definition of scarce (Very scarce to scarce) is much broader.... Say 16-50ish... Perhaps I would say the Wagner is scarce at around 60 of them or so...

Just one opinion, but how I see it in my little world.

I'd say less than 10 known. Nice arbitrary round number.

Gee, "rare." I guess that would be defined as..RARE???

In my world of 19th century Detroit, I consider many items rare. A high percentage of the Detroit Old Judges on my want list haven't surfaced over the last decade. The cards exist, it just takes significant patience, dedication, and ability to dig deep into the wallet when necessary . . . qualities we all have to varying degrees.

On the flip side, there are many Old Judges in my collection that surface maybe once every 1-5 years that I consider common. I should qualify my statements by disclosing I collect by pose (not player).

It's all relative. Without the rarities, collecting wouldn't be nearly as fun.

rare Fripples sighting.

Bloody hell, what?

Interesting link that somewhat ties to this topic http://www.heavypen.com/coins/page3.html

The seller can claim anything to be rare so it's up to the buyer to distinguish. "Rare" to me is a Coelacanth fossil. I have to catch myself when considering a large baseball card purchase because they are not that old and I tend to feel better about shelling out money when something is both old and rare. One hundred and fifty years is hardly recognizable on a time scale for someone who collects fossils or say paleolithic artifacts. "Old" and "rare"' are both relative because no card is alike and "old" could refer to earlier issues. Beanie Babies from the 1990's could be considered old. It's not incorrect to claim something as rare regardless of it's population or age but it is subjective because what it is measured against is up to the seller. I've always found that cards are more "rare" when you're trying to sell or trade them.

My personal scale for a "rare" baseball card is 100 or less known examples.

As a 19th century guy like Joe I find rare to be a very overused term. I would say at the least, to be considered rare, there must be 10 or less of a particular card. Many 19th century cards are rare, but that's why very few 19th century sets can be completed. I also dislike the term "condition rarity". A condition rarity is usually no more than a high grade example of an easily found card.

Scarcity is a matter of supply versus demand
Rarity is an absolute number.

A card can be scarce but not rare, and rare but not scarce (no demand).

couldn't resist I see.

Here is the Rarity Scale from Walter Breen's Complete Encyclopedia of U.S. and Colonial Coins. (One of the best reference books ever created for coin collectors) I know, I know, coins, but the definition should be the same.

Unique = 1
Nearly Unique = 2-3
Extremely Rare = 4-12
Very Rare = 13-30
Rare = 31-75
Very Scarce = 76-200
Scarce = 201-500
Uncommon = 501-1250
Common = 1251-and up

Rarity is relative. Every E107, for example, is a rare card but because so few people collect the set and most are happy with an example or two, nobody thinks of an E107 common as a rare card. But if there was a T206 with as few known examples as an E107 common- Wagner and Plank come to mind- then it would be thought of as a great rarity.

But no question the term is overused by sellers who mistakenly believe that if they call a common card rare it will sell for more money.

works for me!

For Pre-war cards it works up to rare, for me. After that, not as much. This is a pretty good table overall though...

Agreed.

Good point Barry. There is a bit of relativity to demand in the equation for me. T206 is a good example. The Doyle NY Natl is an extreme rarity (8 known I think) because so many people would like one, but I am trying to put together another set (N167) for which every card in the set is more rare than the Doyle.
JimB

The first thought that came to mind when I saw the question was, "Less than 20 known".
JimB

I remembered seeing a list like this years ago, but I wouldn't have been able to recall where. Thanks to Ronnie for posting this! The only term and definition on this list that I could remember with absolute certainty was UNIQUE, which literally means ONLY ONE! While this thread is all about use -- or mis-use -- of the word rare, what really irks me is when people mis-use the word unique. As in, wow, your 2012 Toyota Prius is really unique!

Just did an ebay search on T206's. Lots of rare cards, a few very rare and even a unique card with a Piedmont back lol. Also, gotta love those "shrink wrapped" cards and the cards that are Beauty's but not American Beauty's. I like descriptions that are complete with no extras. Some just put T206 and the player name, then you have to click on the auction to see what the grade and back is. I know, descripion is a completly different topic but just needed to vent my frustration somewhere.:rolleyes:

The coin rarity rating is not really adjectival but in common usage a numerical one. Coins are rated from Rarity 1, the most common, to rarity 8, which approaches unique.

For example, a T206 Wagner, assuming 60-75 are known, would be a R5-.

A T206 Plank, assuming 100+ known, would rate a R4.

A Cobb with Cobb back, of which there are roughly 13, would be a 6+.

And a Doyle Nat'l, with 8 known, would be a R7.

The coin hobby, which has been around a little longer than ours, has a very good knowledge of how many of every date and variety are known. All the great rarities have been well documented. As more research and data accumulation is done with vintage baseball cards, the more likely a similar rarity scale will be implemented.

one caveat
 

One caveat to this whole debate is the word "known" beside each of the numbers. As was pointed out, the coin hobby is more mature and DOES have mintage numbers. Not so, the pre-war card hobby. As someone who collects rare and scarce cards we better put the term "known" next to the copies known about today. How many T207 Red Crosses were there 3 yrs ago and how many are known today? (as an example)

Barry, my friend, I disagree with what you say. Rarity is not relative, it is absolute. Rarity does not imply value or demand. It simply implies that there ain't much of the rare item. The Doyle is the only rare card, albeit a variation, in the T206 set. Wagner and Plank, while not rare are very valuable. Many E107s are rare. All N167s are rare. No N300 is rare.

Ditto less than 10-20 in existence is pretty damn rare.

So, can we all conclude
 

then, that all the wonderful parallel, serially-numbered shiny sets put out by Bowman and Topps today are rare?

I think Bowman Chrome probably takes the cake for the number of rare parallel sets....

Rare
 

M

Jay- I agree with what you are saying, but in hobby parlance Wagner and Plank are always referred to as rare cards. And there are many cards with fewer examples known that are not. So while rarity may in fact be objective, the term is tossed around in a somewhat more subjective manner....if that makes any sense.

Leon- Even with coins rarity ratings are based solely on the examples that are known. It is assumed that new ones will be found and that their rating will change over time. Many coins that were 6's a generation ago are 5's today. That comes with the territory. The point is to document them as they become known to the collecting public.

Rarity doesn't have to be absolute or quantifiable... "Rube Waddell was a rare talent."

I doubt that such a scale would be accepted in our hobby -- at least not in our lifetime. At least not as long as "research" is defined by some folks as "I talked to someone at the Reading show, and we came to the conclusion that XX number of these cards exist."

Or: "I've received emails, and based on 100 reponses, we can conclude this variation is a rarity."

Already we know that some of the hobby's data, along with the "research" done to accumulate and bastardize it, is inaccurate. So until that unfortunate hurdle is overcome, anything based on that data will be greeted with skepticism. As it should be.

Barry you're sounding like alan hagar?

Rare
 

And then we have the modern 1 of 1 cards, which qualify as unique/rare, but then again, who cares? In addition, there are 1000's of 1 of 1 cards out there, so does that mean they are not rare?

Give me a D329 or a Mother's Bread, or Virginia Extra - then we are talking "rare".

Rick

I left out the R1 to R8 rating thinking it might be more coin related but heres the actual scale with the R1 to R8 ratings.

R8 - Unique = 1
R8 - Nearly Unique = 2-3
R7 - Extremely Rare = 4-12
R6 - Very Rare = 13-30
R5 - Rare = 31-75
R4 - Very Scarce = 76-200
R3 - Scarce = 201-500
R2 - Uncommon = 501-1250
R1 - Common = 1251-and up

Also, Heres some interesting history of the Rarity Scale. It was written by Noel Humphreys around 1853 and was mainly used only for large cents dated 1793-1814. It was later modernized by Dr. Sheldon around 1949.

One more thing, Leon is right, nearly all coin mintages are known and card mintages are not but the coin Rarity Scale is mostly used to rate varieties of coins and not the actual total mintages. The scale is to be used to describe whats known at the time meaning an item can move up and down the scale as items are found and lost.

In my mind:
5 or less is very rare.
10 or less is rare.
25 or less is very scarce.
50 or less is scarce.
T206 Wagner & Plank are nothing more than "difficult."
Without checking the pop reports, I would think that every T214 is very rare, and every E107 is rare.
Val

I like this scale the best so far in describing our cards. Here is one that is probably at least rare, by this scale.

rare
 

very seldom seen ....frequency of a few seen in a collecting career.....

I'm curious why the coin terminology uses "scarce" as part of a scale that includes "rare." It seems they ignored the dictionary definition because they ran out of terms to describe 8 different levels of rarity. As David has pointed out, the two terms should not be part of the same scale as they describe different things (how many exist vs. how commonly they are available).

One other note - while rarity is a term related to the absolute number of something that exists, in conversation, it is often used as relative rarity, which is comparing the number of item A that exists to the number of item B. Relative to a 1985 Topps card, a T206 is rare. Relative to a V100, the T206 is not rare.

When labeling something as rare you can include not just the card but the issue. One could say a modern 1 of 1s are not rare as there are 10,000 of them. Just So cards, on the other hand, are rare from any viewable angle.

Just an idea, not a statement of ideology. Disagree as you wish.

I don't have a specific number as to what is rare. Though I'll know when I disagree with a seller who says something is rare.

I would call the T206 Honus Wagner rare.

Though every time this subject comes up, I give the exact same definition of scarce and no one listens to me. And I'll do it next time too. You know that Milton Friedman quote don't you?

Rob- the rarity scale, if it were ever to work in the baseball card hobby, would have to be based on documented examples, or those accepted from very reliable and credible sources. If somebody said, I know someone who has a Wagner but he wants to remain anonymous and doesn't want to provide a scan, it would not be counted in the population.

Peter- Alan Hagar was a coin dealer, after all.

It's unclear whether our hobby wants to employ a rarity scale, but it has worked successfully in the vintage coin market. One problem I see with it is it gives dealers yet another reason to charge even more. If a card was say a R5, be sure the price is going to be jacked up. So when you go to a show, instead of being offered a card at triple retail expect to pay quadruple.

I believe this is precisely what the population reports have done. "This is only 1 of 11 at this grading tier with only 3 higher..."

David - per my post above, I agree 100% with your comments on the term "scarce." It isn't even a case of agree/disagree; you are quoting the definition of the word.

And there's the rub, Barry. One man's (or board's) reliable source is another's fantasy writer.

Well somehow they manage to do it with large cents. You wouldn't believe the documentation they have.

And as Matt suggested, you can't document by TPG pop reports, because those are woefully inaccurate.

Bottom line: we probably won't see it with baseball cards.

I generally agree with Eric's take. I consider something "Rare" if neither I, nor any of my collecting peers, have ever seen but a handful of examples. There may have been 1 million made, but if in 35+ years we have only run across 5, either in person or in research, I'd have no problem calling it "Rare".

That does not preclude the possibility that there may be 999,995 sitting somewhere in a basement.:eek:

And as someone else said, I do believe the universe of collectors vs number of examples does play a role. I'm pretty sure a Williams HR ball would be considered more rare than an Ashburn.

Interesting topic!

I've wrestled with the semantics in writing my boxing card books. I agree that "unique" means 1 of 1. Leon's T231 is unique. T220 Silver Donovan is unique. All of the N175-style boxers are unique [1 of 1s]. The Sporting Life Jeffries-Munroe is unique. Beyond that, the way I look at it doesn't have hard dividing lines, especially because we don't have mint numbers or other production figures to pin down what might be out there.

I generally analyze rarity based on frequency of availability and known numbers. If a card is seldom offered for sale and the pop of known specimens are traceable when they do come up as having come from specific collectors or finds, it is a rare card as far as I am concerned. Does't matter whether there are two or a dozen examples, or how many may be offered coincidentally in any given time frame due to collector deaths, liquidations, etc. The 1948 Leaf Graziano is rare. Doesn't matter that several may be offered over a given time frame because all of them are traceable to specific collectors liquidating known examples [Hull, Dreier, etc.] or from out of hobby sources. The Baltimore News Ruth is a good example in baseball. For a while it seemed like every major auction had one, but the pop dried up quickly and the card disappeared into collections. Once a card starts to be offered for sale regularly and isn't readily traced, it moves to scarce status. T206 Plank is a very good example of a scarce card. There's a pretty decent pop out there, it transacts regularly, but is far less available than most T206s. T206 Wagner is on the cusp of scarce-rare IMO. When there are multiples of a card offered every year but you might have to wait a while to find one you want, it is uncommon. Say a T206 with a specific back that you want. A Chase with trophy may be readily acquired and is common; not so much when you want a Piedmont 460 Factory 42 back. When you can get the card or assemble a set within a year if price is no object, it is common. Most any postwar mainstream set.

I agree with Jay as to condition rarities; I'll take the "wow I've never seen that before" over the "wow, that's an 8-9-10" any day.

I agree the term "rare" is overused, especially on ebay. How often have we seen a card described as "rare" and then see the exact same card offered for sale on ebay by another seller without any of the attention-getting adjectives. It is very hard to determine rarity because there are a number of card collectors (many long time collectors) who don't share information with other collectors for many different reasons, one of which is that some are not computer literate.
I don't have a definition for rarity of pre-war cards, I prefer the philosophy of Justice Stewart in the Jacobellis case who, in defining pornography, said he couldn't define it but knew it when he saw it. Not to compare porn to cardboard but I know rarity when I see it, whether it be an E107 or a 1911 Zeenut Bohen.
I would also point out that there are some cards which are "rare by perception," cards which have been taken out of the marketplace like the 1911 Zeenut Fullerton, which are rarely offered because the family of the player progresively purchased almost every existing copy and the remaining few are deep in collections. The Fullerton is no more "rare" than others in the set but the perception is that they are "rare" because they seldom appear for sale. The Lindsay family did the same thing with the 1911 Zeenut Lindsay card years ago.

Matt, you nailed it! I see sellers on eBay using this information all the time to make their cards sound more exciting and desirable! But it doesn't work on me. And besides, I know (or can pretty well assume) that if there are, say, 5 of a given card at a given grade in a population report, there are probably twice or thrice as many actually out there in the world, or maybe more, because there are lots of collectors like me who have never submitted anything for grading and never will. Of course, PSA et al. would prefer to pretend that collectors like me don't exist. I guess you could say they don't consider US part of the population!

Paradoxically, the pop reports will often overstate the rarity of common cards and understate the rarity of the stars because people are more ready to drop the grading fees on having stars slabbed than commons.

Exactly - 'Rare' on eBay is more of a marketing tool than an accurate description. While most on this board will see through the false rarity claims on eBay, there are many others on eBay who don't and do pay premiums for relatively common cards. I don't fault the sellers as they're trying to get top dollar for their auctions. I fault the uninformed buyers who not knowing what they're buying.

A problem with rarity numbers is no one knows how many of a given card exists.

After all, the Murphy's Law of Pre-War collecting is purchasing the "only one in existence" means a second will show up on eBay the next week.

If you guys decided a rarity scale was the way to go-- you'd have endless arguments of how many of the cards exists.

Start with the T206 Honus Wagner. Let's hammer out how many exist.