The Scarcity Intensity Scale

[cOO7rgi]

Although I am not a beginner as a collector, some posts in the last days have puzzled me. Like the grading in YYS4BOB's thread or motorman's remark that some models were "rare but not hard to find". I have always thought that "rare", "scarce" or "hard to find" were interchangeable - something that's not common. In German we just use the word "selten" for that (and everything is "selten" on ebay anyway), so I was a bit surprised to see such distinctions made between "rare", "scarce", "HTF". YYS4BOB even mentioned "difficult" which I haven't seen before and don't know where this would fit in the "Scarcity Intensity Scale".

So, please can anybody shed some light - which is the correct order of scarcity, starting with "common" and going into "holy grail" territory - and what would be the typical availability of a "rare" or "scarce" item? Like, is a version seen once or twice per year "rare", "scarce", "HTF" or "VHTF"?

[GHOSTHUNTER]

This should be a very entertaining thread, but I fear the term..."I've made a rod for my own back", may apply here...

Ghosthunter.

[johnboy]

It is something we've talked about before and it would be nice to have a format that we can use on VBD consistently.

[YYS4BOB]

The definitions of the grading I use are those recognised in the YY world for some considerable time.

Difficult :- Not easy to find and with a small premium.
Scarce :- Not easy to find and when seen for sale will have a premium price.
Rare :- Seldom seen for sale and with a high premium.
Very Rare:- Very occasionally seen for sale and at a very high premium.
Extremely Rare:- Exceptionally highly priced and very seldom seen for sale.

These definitions are taken verbatim from "The Yesteryear Book" commonly known as "The Yesteryear Bible " or "The White Book" published by MICA.

[fixer]

i would agree with Bob but include hard to find (htf) in around the difficult / scarce range

[GHOSTHUNTER]

The terms 'Rare' and 'Very Rare' are the most used to describe examples of models we all collect. Both can appear in the same sentance...

"I'll show you my rare model"
is that the one you paid a lot of Money for
"Yes, it's very rare, please don't drop it"

...and I am sure that is similar to what many collectors have heard.

I fear there will never be a set of guide-lines established for the terms and definitions used by collectors, as we all have varying levels of what we consider 'Rare', depending on how long you have been searching for a model.

There are models that will always command a premium price when they come up for sale due to production quantities or issue status.

I have been searching for a version of a model that on it's own is not particularly valuable and not really a model made in limited numbers, it just has a certain component finished in an alternative colour to the usual model and if it turns up at a toy fair I expect it to be no more than a few pounds sterling, but to me, it is proving to be a very rare model!

Ghosthunter.

[Miller]

Also different markets make different impressions of a model. The Y-16 green Mercedes SS with green roof seems to be a rare model in GB or overseas, here in Germany they pop up weekly. The same goes for the gpw 15b Rotinoff - i know of more than 5 offers last year (not mentioning the "special german" offers ). But try to find a tourquise Mercedes bus can be a real hunt here.

So even if we had a kind of "rarity key", it wouldn´t fit everywhere.

[Squid]

So even if we had a kind of "rarity key", it wouldn´t fit not everywhere.

Roland brings up a good point. I will also add that "rare" is one of the most abused words in the English language. But for whatever it's worth, I tend to think of commonality/rarity as follows: common, uncommon, rare, and very rare.

[Moyboy]

I base my ratings on what I see on sale at places like auctions, Ebay etc and surprisingly as Ghostie says there are some variants that I have never seen yet only have a low rating in most variation listings. I have searched for a Y14 Maxwell with a gold /brass petrol tank instead of the copper one and only ever seen 1 on sale in all these years and the book lists as 'very rare' but value is a lot lower than comparable items. Maybe a huge question of model popularity comes up as its a plain model.
Were some rare models in one country deliberately shipped to individual countries to make swapping of models possible amongst collectors as Matchbox knew this went on so would have raised interest in the models and greater sales for them.

[toysnz]

I don't have much to add to the discussion except to say that, like Bob, I use the White Book descriptions of "Rarity" when coding my Yesteryears as this , in the absence of any modern alternative, is the "Bible" most serious collectors use world-wide.

Mick's comment re "Were some rare models in one country deliberately shipped to individual countries to make swapping of models possible amongst collectors as Matchbox knew this went on" has credibility as we know they deliberately issued the Nestles (light grey roof) and Arnotts vans in Australia only (albeit the latter a result of Matchbox being put in the hands of the Receivers), the Coca Cola van (destined for many markets) was released in the USA Germany and Austria, the sunlight was released in Germany Austria and Switzerland.

I also found Miller's comment "But try to find a tourquise Mercedes bus can be a real hunt here" to strike a familiar chord... anecdotally in New Zealand this bus is considered "RARE" because only one city in the country received the turquoise Mercedes bus - apparently only Palmerston North received the turquoise version and the rest of the country received the orange version - almost all older collectors I know in Palmerston North bought their bus from the local shop(s) at the time of release and, at the time, considered the orange version to be "RARE" as they hadn't been able to buy one! It took me years to find one at an acceptable price, but they do come up at swapmeets and on our local on-line auction houses.

Ian