How rare does a card have to be for you to consider it rare? I know this varies from person to person. Just curious what everyone thinks.
For me personally I would say the literal rarity (= number of cards out there). I know many people also call cards that are especially sought after rare, but when you ask me what my rarest cards are, I would actually try to estimate which cards had the lowest number printed.
4 Likes
I think thats 100% fair. I personally agree with you as well. Would you just look at the PSA pop report for an estimation?
It probably just does come down to limited distribution promos/trophies. You could extend it to cards whittled down by time.
Otherwise the whole productās main selling point is artificial scarcity.
Of course if youāre opening packs, needing to open thousands of them to complete a master set or to find an individual card is not practical.
@RichmondReroll not really. PSA pop is also a measure of demand. If you didnāt already know what had limited distribution, it would be difficult to tell by looking at population alone.
And IDK if it should reside in this topic or I should start another but another question would be how much is āenoughā of a card? They clearly will not print a chase card to match overall demand, but what % or fixed number/ratio is it?
1 Like
Only for cards of which significant amounts also get graded. So mostly Iād more or less go by my own estimation, since the PSA pop report wouldnāt be very helpful at e. g. determining whether a Polish Diamond and Pearl Holo or a Russian Furious Fists EX is rarer.
1 Like
It has a star symbol in one of its bottom corners
23 Likes
Print numbers are the obvious answer. So really the only rare cards would be trophies. A subset would then be obscure UL print runs of things like L1/expedition that were used as promotional cards/handed out at events or the like and only certain set cards were included. Even after all this time info on some of these kind of ārareā cards is unknown.
Another subset of things that are less rare such as L2 UL where the distribution isnāt really known but they certainly exist in higher numbers than L1/E1 yet some cards still have a 0 PSA pop report. Quite often that would be down to value. Iād expect if they were valuable a lot more would begin showing up.
And another subset which would include cards that received a normal print run or slightly less than normal such as English 1st Edition Base where the rarity is based on condition like the 120ish Charizards in PSA 10. The card itself isnāt rare as much as itās rare to be in such good condition. I believe the e series Lugia falls into a similar category that print lines were a huge problem so itās rare to find the card without and in PSA 10 condition.
Thereās also certain language set cards that are extremely hard to find but as I donāt collect them I canāt recall off the top of my head although Korean 1st Edition and Spanish Neo comes to mind from reading threads on E4.
Thereās many wiser people on here that could elaborate further and make much clearer points, Iām sure.
What I believe makes a card rare is how easy it is to find for sale, regardless of price.
5 Likes
I class first edition Portuguese jungle a rare
1 Like
That one bulk card you need but canāt seem to find it anywhereā¦
8 Likes
Iād consider cards with under 1000 printed to be scarce (play promos, present campaign, stamped tropical wind) and cards with under 100 printed to be truly rare (art academy, trophy, finalist tropical wind, etc). I donāt consider any set card, even those with conditional rarity, to be ārareā.
5 Likes
For set cards, ārareā is the most difficult to pull from those sets
For promos, ārareā is very limited distribution with insatiable demand
e.g. eCard lottery Charizard, PLAY 7000+ pts, L-P Ho-Oh & Lugia, Super Rare Get Set Rayquaza/Giratina
For trophy cards, ārareā is given
1 Like
If you canāt find a listing for a specific card on eBay in 2024, it is rare.
On top of other factors. I can find an Illustrator on eBay, but it is still considered rare.
8 Likes
the little 
or 
at the bottom of the card 
3 Likes
Just piggybacking off of this comment, but I NEVER check a pop report. I personally cobsider it pointless. Mainly because Ive done my own research beforehand on what I like, and pop report can be skewed by resubmissions. I think alot of other collectors know this too.
1 Like
The only acceptable answer right here
I think the word ārareā is more complex than people deep in the hobby like us give it credit.
Itās not purely about total supply. For example, if you ask people what the ārarestā PokĆ©mon card is, youād probably get the Illustrator, 1st edition Charizard and maybe Moonbreon as very common answers.
Yet I can name dozens of cards with less known copies than all three.
The concept of rarity combines the idea of a low probability event with a beautiful/desirable/unique outcome. For example, finding a blue lobster feels like a rare event because itās something like 1:2M odds and the blue is so strikingly different and special (and yet there are colours with even lower encounter odds)
And yet this painting of a blue lobster is ārarerā (i.e. one-of-a-kind) than a real blue lobster. Yet itās weird to think of it that way.
So what makes a card rare?:
- extremely hard to acquire
- extraordinarily desirable
Total print number or population is not the answer imo
5 Likes
That makes sense. Shows the difference between rarity and pure scarcity.
When I say itās rare
3 Likes
For most cases pertaining to this hobby, I think you can sub in the word scarce. A lot of items the trouble isnāt if they exist, itās a number of other reasons such as the existing owners do not want to sell, or show the item, etc. Itās not wrong to use rare in a lot of contexts, but where do you draw the line? Thatās something that is simply a personal definition, in my opinion.
1 Like
