A discussion on the term "rare".

[Chicago206]

Perhaps the single most overused adjective on all of ebay, and especially pertaining to collectibles such as cards, is the term "rare".

Since the word is simply a relative term, its sort of difficult to quantify it with absolute parameters. For instance, an entity such as gold could easily be described as rare even though there is enough to fill 3 Olympic sized swimming pools with all the known gold mined by mankind. Conversely, I could easily fit all 10,000 numbered copies of the 1991 Donruss Elite series card of George Brett into my bedroom dresser, yet not many people would consider that to be a "rare" item.

So what exactly does the term "rare" mean to you in regards specifically to sports cards? Could an Uzit backed T206 card be considered rare with perhaps 250-350 in existence? Or does it take a bigger hitter such as a BL460 (maybe 40-60 known) to qualify?

Does a "rarity scale" exist in the trading card world? As an ex coin collector, I know that such a scale does exist for round shiny objects. My personal opinion on the subject is that rarity is just a tiny overall attribute of any object. There are coins that number in the low teens, but as victims of their own obscurity, they suffer when they cross the auction block. As we all know, supply is just one side of the all important equation! For an item to truly be considered "rare", I think that no more than 100 examples worldwide should be known to exist. What are your thoughts?