What is your definition of "RARE?"

[Deertick]

Originally Posted by Tao_Moko

Interesting link that somewhat ties to this topic http://www.heavypen.com/coins/page3.html

The seller can claim anything to be rare so it's up to the buyer to distinguish. "Rare" to me is a Coelacanth fossil. I have to catch myself when considering a large baseball card purchase because they are not that old and I tend to feel better about shelling out money when something is both old and rare. One hundred and fifty years is hardly recognizable on a time scale for someone who collects fossils or say paleolithic artifacts. "Old" and "rare"' are both relative because no card is alike and "old" could refer to earlier issues. Beanie Babies from the 1990's could be considered old. It's not incorrect to claim something as rare regardless of it's population or age but it is subjective because what it is measured against is up to the seller. I've always found that cards are more "rare" when you're trying to sell or trade them.

My personal scale for a "rare" baseball card is 100 or less known examples.

I generally agree with Eric's take. I consider something "Rare" if neither I, nor any of my collecting peers, have ever seen but a handful of examples. There may have been 1 million made, but if in 35+ years we have only run across 5, either in person or in research, I'd have no problem calling it "Rare".

That does not preclude the possibility that there may be 999,995 sitting somewhere in a basement.

And as someone else said, I do believe the universe of collectors vs number of examples does play a role. I'm pretty sure a Williams HR ball would be considered more rare than an Ashburn.

Interesting topic!

[Exhibitman]

I've wrestled with the semantics in writing my boxing card books. I agree that "unique" means 1 of 1. Leon's T231 is unique. T220 Silver Donovan is unique. All of the N175-style boxers are unique [1 of 1s]. The Sporting Life Jeffries-Munroe is unique. Beyond that, the way I look at it doesn't have hard dividing lines, especially because we don't have mint numbers or other production figures to pin down what might be out there.

I generally analyze rarity based on frequency of availability and known numbers. If a card is seldom offered for sale and the pop of known specimens are traceable when they do come up as having come from specific collectors or finds, it is a rare card as far as I am concerned. Does't matter whether there are two or a dozen examples, or how many may be offered coincidentally in any given time frame due to collector deaths, liquidations, etc. The 1948 Leaf Graziano is rare. Doesn't matter that several may be offered over a given time frame because all of them are traceable to specific collectors liquidating known examples [Hull, Dreier, etc.] or from out of hobby sources. The Baltimore News Ruth is a good example in baseball. For a while it seemed like every major auction had one, but the pop dried up quickly and the card disappeared into collections. Once a card starts to be offered for sale regularly and isn't readily traced, it moves to scarce status. T206 Plank is a very good example of a scarce card. There's a pretty decent pop out there, it transacts regularly, but is far less available than most T206s. T206 Wagner is on the cusp of scarce-rare IMO. When there are multiples of a card offered every year but you might have to wait a while to find one you want, it is uncommon. Say a T206 with a specific back that you want. A Chase with trophy may be readily acquired and is common; not so much when you want a Piedmont 460 Factory 42 back. When you can get the card or assemble a set within a year if price is no object, it is common. Most any postwar mainstream set.

I agree with Jay as to condition rarities; I'll take the "wow I've never seen that before" over the "wow, that's an 8-9-10" any day.

[tbob]

I agree the term "rare" is overused, especially on ebay. How often have we seen a card described as "rare" and then see the exact same card offered for sale on ebay by another seller without any of the attention-getting adjectives. It is very hard to determine rarity because there are a number of card collectors (many long time collectors) who don't share information with other collectors for many different reasons, one of which is that some are not computer literate.
I don't have a definition for rarity of pre-war cards, I prefer the philosophy of Justice Stewart in the Jacobellis case who, in defining pornography, said he couldn't define it but knew it when he saw it. Not to compare porn to cardboard but I know rarity when I see it, whether it be an E107 or a 1911 Zeenut Bohen.
I would also point out that there are some cards which are "rare by perception," cards which have been taken out of the marketplace like the 1911 Zeenut Fullerton, which are rarely offered because the family of the player progresively purchased almost every existing copy and the remaining few are deep in collections. The Fullerton is no more "rare" than others in the set but the perception is that they are "rare" because they seldom appear for sale. The Lindsay family did the same thing with the 1911 Zeenut Lindsay card years ago.