Does rarity help or hurt value?

[Orioles1954]

"The only thing rarer than this item is a buyer." - Bill Huggins

[Touch'EmAll]

Does rarity help or hurt value.

I think we have all concluded that demand is the real driving force to value.

That said, lets assume we have a high demand card. Then by economic principals, the more rare it it the higher the price. A great example is the T206 Wagner: super high demand, yet relative rarity = super high price.

Lets now assume we have an extremely low demand card. If there is a high supply, then the value will be very, very low. But if it the low demand card is also very rare, it will be worth more than the high supply card.

In both cases, in itself, rarity helps value.

What if we have a card in very high demand, but also very high supply ('89 Upper Deck Griffey PSA 10). It is possible to still get a relatively high price because, as we have said before, demand trump supply.