What's the REAL definition of "rare"?
 

There are certain cards I have been looking for for years and not found a single one while at the same time a t206 Wagner (or two) comes on the block every six months. Expense aside, I would call that pretty readily available.

Many of us lament at "rare" terminology in our hobby. And this is the exact argument I make every time someone says something is valuable because it is rare. It's not!! It is valuable because of demand. Every one of these E221s is probably 20x more rare than a T206 Wagner. Yet every one of them is about 1% of the value. (give or take)...and Edited to add, everyone's definition of "rare" will be a bit different. In our space I put the "rare" on things with around 10 or less known.....but even my definition is not set in stone, by any means.

there is rare as in number of examples, and rare as in how often they come up.

if there is only one of something in the hobby, but it goes to auction every month by people flipping it over and over again,

for me rare is how many there are in the hobby. many times there is a correlation between how many there are and how often they come up but wagner is an anomoly in some respect because prices have been skyrocketing and examples get flipped more often because of it.

some of the people buying wagner are not hobbyists that would keep them in their collection a long time, but rather investors looking to flip them for a good profit a couple of years down the line, hence a fairly rare card being offered as available more often than they might otherwise be.

What's the REAL definition of rare?

http://i1197.photobucket.com/albums/...94566/rare.jpg

Leon is correct….I will add that as a collector I even drag down the term “rare” into a few sub categories.

Quantity Rarity: Basically any item that there are just so few of. For me 5-20 items or less I consider rare. If it’s 1-5 I consider it basically a one of a kind item. Because you almost are assured that of those 5 examples at least 3-4 are tied up in major collections not going anywhere anytime soon.

Price Rarity: Basically any item that falls under the category of huge sums of money T206 Wagner, 1933 Lajoie etc. these items are not easy by any means! However these items generally fall under scarce more than rare, and price is what keeps them from trading more often.

Condition Rarity: This one’s tough and too often linked to BS such as pop reports and false claims. However there are real examples of this in our world certain types that are rarely found in good shape due to the way they were distributed or how they were produced.

Some items in our hobby are hybrids of the above matrix i.e. a high grade T206 Wagner would have price rarity and condition rarity but still only be a scarce card in terms of quantity rarity.

Are there exceptions to these rules sure always will be, but that’s how I draw the line in the sand regarding the term rare.

Cheers,

John

Wonk -
+1

+1 Wonka.

Nice cards Leon.

I know of only two Solly Hofman Drums but in no way would I consider it "rare" in the hobby sense. Maybe when compared to the specific set its from.

Phsaw Leon, those aren't rare, even I have a couple.

(any for sale?)

Old mill buck herzog is rare...

Well, that would be my question to you :). Since they aren't rare I am sure you can sell to me and replace them quickly, right?

I agree Leon. Value is a result of supply and demand. The supply of T206 Wagners is low, but there are quite a few cards that are even more rare. What gives Wagner its large value is the huge demand for the card in relation to the limited supply.

Rarity is an absolute number.

Scarcity is supply versus demand.

Something can be rare (low in number) but not scarce (little to no demand for it). And something can be scarce but not rare.

Whether or not it's rare, the T206 Wagner is scarce, as shown by its price tag.

The catch is different collectors will come up with a different number for what counts as rare. Some will say 100, so the Wagner would count as rare. Some might say 5.

maybe there should be an "Official" card scale :)

Unique
Rare
Obscure
Scarce
Tough

For the purposes of the OP (who is relatively new, I think), the terms "rare" and "scarce" have no accepted defined meaning in this hobby.

Hence we see many collectors complaining about sellers who use these terms...ahem...liberally.

There was an extensive dicussion of the term "rarity" in a thread on this board about a year ago. I think it would be tough to add a whole lot to that one:

http://www.net54baseball.com/showthr...ht=define+rare

Cheers,
Blair

Rarity is like obscenity: I know it when I see it.

I'd entirely omit condition rarity from the discussion because it is based on assumptions about a pool of cards [those cards that have been slabbed] that is not a comprehensive measure of all cards out there and that I don't think is all that objective in the first place. I tend to look for items that simply aren't found with any regularity. I saw this at the 2011 National, passed on it, kicked myself all year, then stumbled across it again and bought it in Baltimore:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...0composite.jpg

That's rare. It is also obscure, like this one [European seller of a set over Ebay of late notwithstanding]:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...Maranville.jpg

I find those items infinitelu more interesting to collect than one of these, even though it sells for more:

http://photos.imageevent.com/exhibit...06%20Young.jpg

Boring to me, catnip to others. That's the beauty of collecting.

My easy, and personal, definition of rare is any card that independent of funds cannot be easily purchased relatively immediately. I know that this is not mutual for all collectors, but it fits within the scope of what I collect. If I decide that I want or need an item and it cannot be found for sale after, say, a couple of weeks of earnest searching then to me it is rare.

I think about this a lot in the context of autographed T206 cards. They are exceedingly rare, particularly if you want someone that didn't appear in Larry Ritter's "The Glory of Their Times."

A reputable autograph dealer once told me that Bresnahan signed like 40 of his T206 cards. But, I have only seen a scan of one, and have never seen one come up for sale or auction. How can that be?

Can there be 40 of something baseball card related, where the value is well into the $1,000+ range, and never have it come up for auction?

"Rare" is not a universal number. It is relative to the era/subject matter. Because this is a pre-war card forum and we are all (I'm assuming) talking about pre-war cards, I would say "rare" can be 1-5 subjects. However, I would consider certain t206 oddities and variations "rare" even though there may be 10 known. This is because t206 is such a large set and, comparative to other cards within the set, this card may be rare.

I agree, the term "rare" is used way too liberally, but to assign an exact number to the term "rare" is just silly IMO.

Now that's awesome, Peter! :D

You should be right, but for some reason it has been tough to replace the one I sold you already. :)

True Rarity: I remember in the early 1980's the sort of standard hobby definition of rare was less than 5 known and scarce as less than 20 known, however now it is probably rare if less than 20 are known and scarce if less than 100 are known. That is the standard that I use when writing auction copy.

Perceived Rarity: Some things seem rare now, but are not in the grand scheme of things. I have not had the 1929 Nu-Grape piece above in several years, but I have sold probably 5 or 6 of them in the past. They didn't used to be rare (at least on the east coast), but maybe are now that most have found their way into collections.

scott

That's a good one.