What makes a card rare
 

I would love to hear from you. I have been collecting only since 2007. I know now that certain cards/backs will have a much greater demand. Cards like the Red Cross or Miners cut are they difficult now due to them not being a popular co. back then? I wondered were some co. much smaller or a less desirable cigarette co. back then so they were not collected.

Very curious on your opinions.

In short...
 

Demand significantly exceeds supply.

Particularly in the context of set-building with rare cards.

For example, although T206 Wagner, Plank and Magie are generally not "rare" from a supply-side perspective as compared to other contemporaneous sets, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of collectors who are working on or have largely completed a T206 set. These scarcities compared to the overall set make them frequently referred to as "rare".

Just my $0.02 -- this topic gets debated here frequently.

There are tough cards to find & there are rare cards. A rare card is a card that is produced in limited amounts. That also applies to difficult backs. A tough card is a card which is in more demand which you don't that see that often. As far as I'm concern, tough cards are not rare cards.

Don't listen to the thoughts coming from T206 back collectors. They're largely all crazy. Listen to the Topps and Fleer reverse negative collectors. They're the sane ones.

For me, a rare card is : when you have a card in quantity arround 50 to 100 when other cards in the set are avalaible in 10 of thousand ...

The internet era changed a lot the signification of the term : rare

"contemporaneous"

Thanks Marc, word of the day for me. ;)

As mentioned above, the word "rare" gets discussed here often. Supply & Demand dictate "value", but the terms [rare, scarce & unique] relate specifically to the number of items still in existence. They are separate and distinct from "demand". Put the two together, then there is your market value.

Getting even more specific to your question- a lot of "rare" sets, brands, cards, etc. were regional, only distributed in certain areas of the country (southern league T206 cards for instance). So the supply is lower on them compared to cards with a larger distribution, hence the shortage of examples.

A "rare" card is a card with fewer copies available than there are threads defining the term "rare".

I think some tobacco brands were regional, had shorter life spans, were less popular or distributed less-- thus were less often smoked and found todayl. Mr. Pibb is owned by Coca Cola, but is more a small niche brand for Coca Cola. Mr. Pibb bottles and ad signs are many many times rarer than the Coca Cola versions today. Sweet Caporal was clearly a tobacco company hallmark and was popularly smoked years before and after the T206s were made, thus Sweet Caporal stuff is all found over the place.

Big fashion or candy or tobacco companies make loads of different types and brands of produce, and distribute and brand them carefully. Some are ubiquitous brands, some are small amount local.

It's also sometimes happens that a brand sucks and no one buys it. Some card collectors have joked how bad Drum must have tasted.

Remember on Seinfeld when Elaine smoked a Peruvian cigar and said it was like trying to smoke a chicken bone?

Also note that a tobacco brand variations on the back a Walter Johnson T206 aren't different cards. They are just variations.

I am sure it has been discussed many times here and in other forums so I am saying nothing new. It would seem the most important facet of any such discussion would be to define the terminology. Rare, tough, popular, and highly-desirable all have different connotations to the hobby.

Vintage baseball cards are a wonderful example of a phenomen in economics called Veblen goods -- things that increase in demand as the price goes up. It is the perception of rarity that drives much of the market. The best example being Honus Wagner, of course. More people are willing to pay more money for something that, with each new discovery, is slightly less rare than previously preceived. Many on this board would lament the over-focus on T206 since it is clearly not as rare as many of its contemporary sets. But the barrier to entry for those sets is so high it precludes many of us from joining. T206 is sufficiently rare as to be novel but common enough to be available to the average person. So we pay more than we should for common examples because they are seen as obtainable luxury items.

The danger is that goods of this nature are bound to reach a second hump in the supply curve. Once the price reaches a certain point enough people will cash out, supply will be flooded, and there will be more sellers than buyers. Good if you just want the cards and want to build a collection. Bad if you are collecting for the value.

The biggest thing that bugs me about rarity in the baseball card field is the idea of artificial rarities. I guess modern card companies have to do something to drive sales. But I personally put little value in artifically-limited items. Modern card sets include so many artificial rarities -- 1 of 1 autographed chrome specialties and the like -- but the demand may not quite be there. They are certainly rare in the sense of being 1 of 1 but not as tough to get because generally the person who finds one in a pack wants to unload it. They have no intrinsic value -- merely inflated value by contrived rarity.

Rare
 

I don't collect pre war. On post war I would say the 3 unissued 51 Current All Stars, Topps 1955 Stamps, the 1955 Hocus Focus, 1961 Dice, the 1966 Punch Outs, 1967 and 1968 Discs, the 1970 Cloth and 1971 Rookie Artists Proofs are rare. Things like the the 1968 3Ds, 1967 Stand Ups ( not 64), 1956 Hocus Focus, 1948 Magic Photos are scarce.

So........You don't like ..............

R300 Ivy Andrews
US Caramel Lindstrom
33-4 Goudey Lajoie

And probably a bunch of others like most prewar cards with coupons for a redemption that still have the coupon.

If you get any of those artificial rarities feel free to send them to me. I'll even pick up the postage.

Steve B

Rare: anything I'm looking to buy.

Common: anything I'm looking to sell.

You must not be a dealer...

Most dealers, when it's an item they're selling, it's rare. When they're buying, everything is apparently common...

Nope.

BB card dealers are like car salesman when it comes time to assessing a trade in!

thanks
 

Thanks all for the reply on this. I am sure it has been brought up before. I just noticed from collecting cards in the 1908-1912 mainly some cigarette cards do not come up at all. Some come up alot.

I do apriciate all the commets that have been made and any future comments.

I think it has more to do with what defines a rare modern baseball card. If Topps invests $0.01 more into the printing of card to give it shiny borders, color it green, or have light bounce off of it a different way, it's valuable and rare. If they decide to make the borders purple and mark 1/1 on it, it's rare. There's no reason for the card to be rare, other than a purposefully limited supply of that particular card with that exact design. You'll see the same, exact "1/1" card of the same player with lots of other gimmicks, all limited to 25, 100, 500, etc.

Brendan, you said it much better than I did. My concern is that modern, artificial rarity is conflated as something worth paying a lot of money for...even though there is no reason other than manipulation for the particular 1 of 1 cards to be considered rare. And even though they are technically rare -- the only rainbow chrome autographed RC for a particular player, for example -- they are not special. The 1933 Lajoie is special for many reasons in addition to its rarity.

All that said, I am glad Topps and Bowman have figured out a way to make their sets challenging to collect again. And I have bought modern chrome cards of players I like but that is a rarity (pun intended). I think they have a place it is just the choice of the word "rare" to describe them that is problemmatic. Better wording would be to call them exclusive maybe.

If Zone 91/Adrian mentions it...it is rare...dude...so rare dude!!!!

What makes a card rare? Me asking how much it is.

Manufactured Scarcity
 

Here are a few thoughts regarding the 1-of-1 cards coming out of new products:

1. From a supply standpoint, they are rare...no doubt about it. After all, there's only 1 of them. However...

2. There are a mind-numbing number of sets released each year. Given the prevalence of printing 1-of-1 cards, there are actually dozens of these "unique" cards on the market.

3. The card companies do not stop at just one player. As such, there are dozens of cards for perhaps hundreds of players.

4. Because us baseball fans like statistics, I will throw a very conservative number out there. Let's say that there are 100 players and each of them has 10 different cards, all of which are 1-of-1. That would be 1,000 "unique" cards.

5. The example above only takes into account this year. The card companies have been doing this for a while now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So, now we're talking about thousands of cards.

6. It seems to me they really aren't that "rare," after all.

Best Regards,

Eric

Rare or unique?
 

Here's a front/back combo that PSA has yet to recognize. The "Pop" is zero!!

Is this "combo" rare or is it already noted in the master set?