What Do You Consider "Rare"?

There's an Rarity Scale that has been used for a very long time in the hobby. I just go with that. If you'd like to have a personal scale that is S1 and R1 that's cool.

I'd say anything under 1000 coins is rare (though scarce might match your terminology before). I'd consider anything under 100 very rare. But that's just off the top of my head.

Desirability is the other half of the equation. That's why a 1909S VDB can sell for more than coins many, many times rarer but lacking the collector base.

Here are the definitions in general use.
There are slight variations of this 8 point scale.

R-8: This is a unique coin; only 1 exists
R-7 High: A coin that's excessively rare; 2 to 3 exist
R-7 Low: An extremely rare coin with 4 to 12 remaining known
R-6: A very rare coin with 13 to 30 known specimens
R-5: 31 to 75 coins exist, classifying it as rare
R-4: A very scarce coin with 76 to 200 examples left
R-3: With 201 to 500 estimated pieces, this is a scarce coin
R-2: A coin that is not common, with 501 to 1250 coins in existence
R-1: With at least 1251 coins remaining, this is a common coin

But PCGS has it's own scale and definitions (gee, what a surprise) based on 10 rather than 8.

I agree with this. If there is truly infrequent public sales history (once every few years) and dealers who specialize in a niche who don't come across them very often; it is rare. If it is something that might come up once a year or so, I'd consider it scarce.

There is a short list of US coins I consider rare, most of them are available at any given time.

Valuation is another story, and just because a buyer can't afford it at any given moment because of inflated values doesn't make it rare; only maybe rare to them.

I was at the Ft Myers show a few months ago. There were maybe 15 dealers setup. At least half of the displayed inventory was Morgans. I did note about 4 1877 IHCs too. If a coin is even "scarce", to have 4 at a little show like this is reason to re-evaluate. I would guess if I was focused on this coin at the winter FUN show, I could find a few dozen under that one large roof.

Typecoin971793 ... Thanks for posting the link to Warren Esty's excellent narrative on rarity. While I've never avidly collected ancient coins, Mr. Esty's thoughts on rarity surely coincide with my own; this, relative to counterstamps, Civil War tokens, error coins and other genres that I collect. I found this segment to be most insightful:




IMHO, true rarity transcends the numbers, the availability and/or demand for specimens. For the average collector, rarity is linked to mintage numbers, numeric grades, the number of specimens graded, and ultimately the amount of money that another collector will pay to acquire a coin.

Rarity is a mindset, based largely upon one's knowledge or lack thereof. Here's one of my favorite counterstamped coins. Brunk listed three specimens back in 2003, and more may be out there. It wasn't pictured in his book, and I find none online. Only those collectors who study counterstamps may even know of this issue. It may be worth a few hundred bucks to a knowledgeable collector. To the vast majority of collectors, it's simply a damaged coin or curiosity. To me, discovering about Robert Onderdonk and his patented utensil, the history, is tied to its rarity.

The Onderdonk Lemon Squeezer patent

https://patentimages.storage.google...US354022.pdf

Rare is finding an ebay auction with the listed coin described as "rare" and actually is rare.

When building a collection, rare can apply to many coins that don't qualify under any classic definition of rare. If there are few or no coins of a particular year/variety/grade for sale, then regardless of actual mintages or census figures, the coin is "rare" to me.

On the other hand, every coin I list for sale is definitely rare, if not the world's rarest!