A discussion on the term "rare".

[botn]

This means that something can be considered scarce once demand exceeds supply. Nothing can be rare based solely on demand.

[birdman42]

Originally Posted by botn

This means that something can be considered scarce once demand exceeds supply. Nothing can be rare based solely on demand.

I think rarity and scarcity are different things. Rarity is an absolute concept, having to do with the amount or number of something in existence. Scarcity is relative, comparing the amount of something with the demand for it. If there are only three of something in the world, but only two people want one (and they're not getting into a macho contest over who has more), then it's certainly rare, but it's not scarce.

Think about a Ten Million Obak. It seems like a scarce card, not a rare one. (And I might be showing my ignorance of Obaks with this example.) There's always a ready market for one when it does appear, and you might have to wait a while for that to happen.

Bill

[Matt]

Originally Posted by botn

This means that something can be considered scarce once demand exceeds supply. Nothing can be rare based solely on demand.

correct.

[DixieBaseball]

Rare to me is 25-50 examples
Ultra Rare to me is 2-25 examples.

While I am at it, I would say Scarce to me is 50-100 examples of any one card. So I would say the T206 Honus Wagner for example is scarce or very scarce. (Meaning 50-75 examples would be very scarce and 76-100 examples would be scarce)


Just some quick thoughts on how I value the word Rare and Scarce. Of course I would plug in Ultra Rare and Ultra Scarce to meet these 2 in the middle.

2 cents...

[glchen]

I think of rare in terms of supply and demand (and I agree the term scarce is a better word, but I believe this is just semantics since most people think rare = scarce even though they're not exactly the same). Therefore, if say there are 50K active baseball collectors in the world, if there are 25K copies of a card, I would consider that abundant. If there are only 100 copies of that card, I would consider that rare. However, I would also put that in terms of cards that these collectors WANT to collect. For example, anyone would want to collect the T206 Honus Wagner just like everyone wants to collect the 86 Jordan RC. However, there are some sets, like Game Owned sets or regional sets, that not everyone wants to collect. The people who want to collect those issues can be fanatics, but the normal collector would probably pass on those sets. So even if there are only 500 cards of those available for that kind of set, since there aren't that many people who want to collect them, they wouldn't really be considered rare, IMHO.