What makes a card rare

[steve B]

Originally Posted by arc2q

I am sure it has been discussed many times here and in other forums so I am saying nothing new. It would seem the most important facet of any such discussion would be to define the terminology. Rare, tough, popular, and highly-desirable all have different connotations to the hobby.

Vintage baseball cards are a wonderful example of a phenomen in economics called Veblen goods -- things that increase in demand as the price goes up. It is the perception of rarity that drives much of the market. The best example being Honus Wagner, of course. More people are willing to pay more money for something that, with each new discovery, is slightly less rare than previously preceived. Many on this board would lament the over-focus on T206 since it is clearly not as rare as many of its contemporary sets. But the barrier to entry for those sets is so high it precludes many of us from joining. T206 is sufficiently rare as to be novel but common enough to be available to the average person. So we pay more than we should for common examples because they are seen as obtainable luxury items.

The danger is that goods of this nature are bound to reach a second hump in the supply curve. Once the price reaches a certain point enough people will cash out, supply will be flooded, and there will be more sellers than buyers. Good if you just want the cards and want to build a collection. Bad if you are collecting for the value.

The biggest thing that bugs me about rarity in the baseball card field is the idea of artificial rarities. I guess modern card companies have to do something to drive sales. But I personally put little value in artifically-limited items. Modern card sets include so many artificial rarities -- 1 of 1 autographed chrome specialties and the like -- but the demand may not quite be there. They are certainly rare in the sense of being 1 of 1 but not as tough to get because generally the person who finds one in a pack wants to unload it. They have no intrinsic value -- merely inflated value by contrived rarity.

So........You don't like ..............

R300 Ivy Andrews
US Caramel Lindstrom
33-4 Goudey Lajoie

And probably a bunch of others like most prewar cards with coupons for a redemption that still have the coupon.

If you get any of those artificial rarities feel free to send them to me. I'll even pick up the postage.

Steve B

[Brendan]

Originally Posted by steve B

So........You don't like ..............

R300 Ivy Andrews
US Caramel Lindstrom
33-4 Goudey Lajoie

And probably a bunch of others like most prewar cards with coupons for a redemption that still have the coupon.

If you get any of those artificial rarities feel free to send them to me. I'll even pick up the postage.

Steve B

I think it has more to do with what defines a rare modern baseball card. If Topps invests $0.01 more into the printing of card to give it shiny borders, color it green, or have light bounce off of it a different way, it's valuable and rare. If they decide to make the borders purple and mark 1/1 on it, it's rare. There's no reason for the card to be rare, other than a purposefully limited supply of that particular card with that exact design. You'll see the same, exact "1/1" card of the same player with lots of other gimmicks, all limited to 25, 100, 500, etc.

[arc2q]

Brendan, you said it much better than I did. My concern is that modern, artificial rarity is conflated as something worth paying a lot of money for...even though there is no reason other than manipulation for the particular 1 of 1 cards to be considered rare. And even though they are technically rare -- the only rainbow chrome autographed RC for a particular player, for example -- they are not special. The 1933 Lajoie is special for many reasons in addition to its rarity.

All that said, I am glad Topps and Bowman have figured out a way to make their sets challenging to collect again. And I have bought modern chrome cards of players I like but that is a rarity (pun intended). I think they have a place it is just the choice of the word "rare" to describe them that is problemmatic. Better wording would be to call them exclusive maybe.

[ullmandds]

If Zone 91/Adrian mentions it...it is rare...dude...so rare dude!!!!

[Leon]

What makes a card rare? Me asking how much it is.

[Eric72]

Here are a few thoughts regarding the 1-of-1 cards coming out of new products:

1. From a supply standpoint, they are rare...no doubt about it. After all, there's only 1 of them. However...

2. There are a mind-numbing number of sets released each year. Given the prevalence of printing 1-of-1 cards, there are actually dozens of these "unique" cards on the market.

3. The card companies do not stop at just one player. As such, there are dozens of cards for perhaps hundreds of players.

4. Because us baseball fans like statistics, I will throw a very conservative number out there. Let's say that there are 100 players and each of them has 10 different cards, all of which are 1-of-1. That would be 1,000 "unique" cards.

5. The example above only takes into account this year. The card companies have been doing this for a while now, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. So, now we're talking about thousands of cards.

6. It seems to me they really aren't that "rare," after all.

Best Regards,

Eric

[leaflover]

Here's a front/back combo that PSA has yet to recognize. The "Pop" is zero!!

Is this "combo" rare or is it already noted in the master set?