The R word

[DarkTone | 984]

The word rare is used too much in collecting, especially within the game community. But what does that word mean to you?

What's your definition? How low a print run or a surviving console or game is "rare" in your eyes? 

 

[Romiked2689 | 120]

Rare should be less then 25-50 

[Californication | 1,477]

My god, my mind is awful. I was not thinking "rare," Lol.

Edited March 25, 2020 by Californication

[a3quit4s | 4,092]

First thing that came to my mind was Reproduction lol. Rare should mean less than 50 are up on eBay. 

[Gloves | 11,761]

19 minutes ago, Californication said:

My god, my mind is awful. I was not thinking "rare," Lol.

 

8 minutes ago, a3quit4s said:

First thing that came to my mind was Reproduction lol. Rare should mean less than 50 are up on eBay. 

 

Yeah it's called clickbait lol.

[Magus | 169]

For something to be rare to me, there can only be 1 or 2 ebay/available at any given time. Or none at all for months or longer. Then it really is rare, and not just uncommon. 

If you can easily go on ebay and buy 10+ of them if you have the money, it isn't really rare, just uncommon. 

[NEET.dreams | 49]

To me a Rare game means something like Goldeneye, Donkey Kong Country, Killer Instinct, Banjo Kazooie, Conker's Bad Fur Day, stuff like that. 

[austin532 | 467]

To me rare means only 1 or 2 show up a year online. Rare doesn't automatically mean it's expensive either. So many people use that as clickbait.

[DefaultGen | 5,399]

I feel like we’ve had a thread about this here. I’d say something is rare if you can’t buy it at market value within a reasonable period of time. So almost anything at least periodically on Ebay isn’t rare. Something like that $7000 crummy Outback Joey doesn’t count as seriously being for sale because it’s being “offered” at like 3x what it’s worth.

Edited March 26, 2020 by DefaultGen

[Estil | 1,261]

Ebay ought to just ban the word "rare" from its titles along with that L@@K!! one  

[Estil | 1,261]

22 hours ago, austin532 said:

To me rare means only 1 or 2 show up a year online. Rare doesn't automatically mean it's expensive either. So many people use that as clickbait.

Indeed look at how out of hand 1/1 trading cards have gotten all this century.

[Estil | 1,261]

23 hours ago, Magus said:

For something to be rare to me, there can only be 1 or 2 ebay/available at any given time. Or none at all for months or longer. Then it really is rare, and not just uncommon. 

I've had many instances of that on my trading card sets hobby over the years but by far the most frustrating was it taking many years before the 1989 and especially the 1988 Kentucky Collegiate Collection set ever showed up.  Of course there's billions of those North Carolina sets with the so-called JORDAN COLLEGE ROOKIES!!! as Don West from Shop-At-Home would shout at the top of his lungs even though the cards came out in 1989 several years after Jordan played in college...so obviously they do not count as "college rookies".

[Craigly1234 | 110]

To me rare means you gotta work for it. It either can't be found without some effort (an example would be backyard sports baseball 2007 for gamecube) or cant be purchased online without paying a premium price (an example would be cubivore for gamecube. There's usually multiple for sale at a time on ebay, but it gets sold often because its valuable and people almost always are willing to pay up for it)

[Richardhead | 2,813]

Is this rare? Asking for a friend. 

@JamesRobot @Ferris Bueller

[Jeevan | 8,909]

6 minutes ago, Richardhead said:

Is this rare? Asking for a friend. 

@JamesRobot @Ferris Bueller

Shouldn't that be posted in the one of a kind thread??  

[Richardhead | 2,813]

3 minutes ago, Jeevan said:

Shouldn't that be posted in the one of a kind thread??  

Only if it’s the rarest !

[T-Pac | 7,513]

"Rare" is a relative term as far as I'm concerned. Almost any given Bally Astrocade game is harder to find than Felix the Cat for NES, but Felix is still a "rare" game because there are less of them in circulation than the average game of it's same category (meaning carts for the NES).

People tend to get upset over the inaccuracy of all those YouTube videos listing off "rare" retro games, but I think a lot of them aren't too far off the mark. If a game isn't as readily available or exists in lower quantities than the average game of it's same classification, I don't think it's wrong to say that it's "rare" (relatively speaking).

Now, rarity verses value is a different topic that I'd rather not get into...

-CasualCart

[Splain | 2,560]

4 hours ago, DefaultGen said:

I feel like we’ve had a thread about this here. I’d say something is rare if you can’t buy it at market value within a reasonable period of time. So almost anything at least periodically on Ebay isn’t rare. Something like that $7000 crummy Outback Joey doesn’t count as seriously being for sale because it’s being “offered” at like 3x what it’s worth.

I like it. When I first started collecting, I thought rare was the same as expensive (why else would it be expensive??) and then I learned the difference between "pop" rare (Earthbound, Conker, Jack Bros) and "true" rare, stuff that you check every day for a year and don't see. Like you check pricecharting/gvn for sold listings and the last one seen on ebay was in 2017.

[MiamiSlice | 3,089]

On 3/25/2020 at 5:20 PM, Magus said:

For something to be rare to me, there can only be 1 or 2 ebay/available at any given time. Or none at all for months or longer. Then it really is rare, and not just uncommon. 

If you can easily go on ebay and buy 10+ of them if you have the money, it isn't really rare, just uncommon. 

I disagree with this. Something could be "hard to find" because sometimes you literally can't find it anywhere, but that could just mean that the collectors who have it in their possession just aren't making it available. A limited print Switch game that just shipped may only have 3,000 copies in existence, and yet because it's mostly in the hands of resellers, you'll find 30 listings for it on eBay. But keep in mind there are only 3,000 copies of the game. Meanwhile there are plenty of retro games that people consider rare that now only show up with a few copies on eBay or less than that. But we have some idea of how many copies actually exist. Like NBA 2k3 for GameCube or Shepherd's Crossing 2 for DS. There are at least thousands of copies of each one. I would argue that both the Switch game that just shipped and these older games that are now hard-to-find are equally rare regardless of how many copies are listed on eBay. Once that Switch game ends up in the hands of collectors who have no intention of letting them go, then it's considered rare? Because in a few years it's not being listed on eBay anymore? I don't get it. 

Edited March 27, 2020 by MiamiSlice

[portabello | 99]

Recession?

[BreaKBeatZ | 136]

On ‎3‎/‎25‎/‎2020 at 5:20 PM, Magus said:

For something to be rare to me, there can only be 1 or 2 ebay/available at any given time. Or none at all for months or longer. Then it really is rare, and not just uncommon. 

If you can easily go on ebay and buy 10+ of them if you have the money, it isn't really rare, just uncommon. 

It's true for PC collecting too, especially with early titles (1978-1980 games that were released in plastic baggies). There are many games I want that I have never seen for sale.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

For me, there are three varieties of rare that I use, which are as follows:

1. Rarity compared to its peers. For example, I collect unlicensed Famicom games. Truth be told, *original* prints of most of these are going to fit either as uncommon or rare, period. Compared to licensed carts, there just weren't as many produced. Something like Lee Dragon, boxed, is going to be much more common in this set than some other carts. I think this sort of definition of rarity is good to use when the whole set is rare, as it still helps rank the items when doing trades, making purchases, etc.

2. Rarity amongst all items. This isn't nearly as useful imo. Sculptors Cut, Little Samson, and many Gamate games are all rare. But I know which if these I would have the easiest / hardest time purchasing, if money wasn't an issue. Therefore I see comparing rarities across platforms to be pointless generally.

3. Fake rarity. These items are rare, yes, but it's the type of thing such as all the limited edition NES homebrews and repros back on Nintendo Age a few years back. Or the extremely limited runs of some modern games, trying to cater towards collectors. While rare, collectors will snap them all up so they'll all "survive" in excellent condition, and in terms of the non commercial stuff, most will just write it off and not bother collecting it. So it's rare, but it's a whole different ballgame from the other rarities.

[fcgamer | 4,719]

Also, I wish more people would recognise that rare does not necessarily equal value. This tends to get lost so often.

[Hammerfestus | 3,820]

My favorite is when people think rare is a synonym for expensive.  Like over $20 expensive.  “I’ve got a black label copy of Final Fantasy VII.  So rare.”

[guitarzombie | 923]

I thought R was for "Reseller"