What is your definition of "RARE?"

[Ronnie73]

Originally Posted by barrysloate

The coin rarity rating is not really adjectival but in common usage a numerical one. Coins are rated from Rarity 1, the most common, to rarity 8, which approaches unique.

For example, a T206 Wagner, assuming 60-75 are known, would be a R5-.

A T206 Plank, assuming 100+ known, would rate a R4.

A Cobb with Cobb back, of which there are roughly 13, would be a 6+.

And a Doyle Nat'l, with 8 known, would be a R7.

The coin hobby, which has been around a little longer than ours, has a very good knowledge of how many of every date and variety are known. All the great rarities have been well documented. As more research and data accumulation is done with vintage baseball cards, the more likely a similar rarity scale will be implemented.

I left out the R1 to R8 rating thinking it might be more coin related but heres the actual scale with the R1 to R8 ratings.

R8 - Unique = 1
R8 - Nearly Unique = 2-3
R7 - Extremely Rare = 4-12
R6 - Very Rare = 13-30
R5 - Rare = 31-75
R4 - Very Scarce = 76-200
R3 - Scarce = 201-500
R2 - Uncommon = 501-1250
R1 - Common = 1251-and up

Also, Heres some interesting history of the Rarity Scale. It was written by Noel Humphreys around 1853 and was mainly used only for large cents dated 1793-1814. It was later modernized by Dr. Sheldon around 1949.

One more thing, Leon is right, nearly all coin mintages are known and card mintages are not but the coin Rarity Scale is mostly used to rate varieties of coins and not the actual total mintages. The scale is to be used to describe whats known at the time meaning an item can move up and down the scale as items are found and lost.