[Exhibitman]

I wrote an article about rarity (creatively entitled "Rare..."). My definition of absolute rarity was few of the item in existence, hard to find in any condition at any time.

Absolute rarity is wonderful and complicated all at the same time. On the one hand, when you have a truly rare item, you have something truly special. Of course, the flip side is that the card is going to be a real bitch to replace, if you can replace it at all, should you sell or trade it away.

I am not sure I can pick a hard cut-off for absolute rarity, though. I mean if there are 21 examples of a card instead of 20, is it no longer rare? That seems to be an absurdly reductionist way of looking at it.

I guess for me the bottom line is that rarity is like obscenity: i can't tell you precisely what it is but I know it when I see it.