Today's "Rare" Used In Ebay Descriptions Count

It stands at 1,897,008,315.

Runners up are:

JUMBO
GEM
STUNNING
PO FRESH
UNBELIEVABLE (true enough)

RARE (almost an ironclad guarantee it is not)

Don't forget:

BREATHTAKING
AMAZING
SUPERB
LQQK

Nice analysis, and probably accurate. I also find the use of "Rare" to be ridiculous, and it does not attract me to look at all.

Other possibilities:

Scarce
Unusual
Outstanding

Rare is an interesting and relative term.

A close friend collects real photo post cards from his grand parents very small home town in North Dakota. Before ebay he had two or three. He now has probably 20 or more, all definitely rare and definitely thanks to the immense ebay marketplace.

Being half Dutch, I happen to like Fiesta Dreamland china, and like my friend's RPPCs, I had two before ebay and now have a dozen or 15 different Dreamland items, some of which number in the thousands but only appear even on ebay three or four times a year.

As for stamps -- very few claimed as rare are anything more than uncommon (another relative term). Some are sought after, and some enjoy a very thin market indeed.

I have no knowledge one way or another on this, but does ebay really have on the order of 2-Billion (with a "B") listings just for stamps?

Since they all don't say RARE, no doubt, that implies that there are way more than that just of stamps.

If that's true, I guess I hadn't realized the magnitude of the number of stamps for sale on ebay. Interesting.

My favorite lately is "NO FAULTS" on stamps with horrible stains and missing perfs. Same seller calls every stamp he lists VF no matter how badly centered.

Really? I've either had too much wine with my evening meal (probably ) or there is something wrong here.

That's 1.8 billion when there is normally only 1 billion items for sale on ebay at anyone time!

I make it 25 million or 234,000 for category 'stamps'.

Mike

Two more overused superlatives: Gem! Jumbo!

Also love the "dramatic perf shifts" that are nothing more than poorly centered stamps.

Oh yeah. Real rare cancel....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/GRAF-ZEPPEL...AOSwGdhZpMyX

I just love this thread

My personal most-irritating description term is

UNLISTED

For something that is, in fact, listed in a catalog.

I always interpret usage of this word as either

a) I briefly glanced in an old catalog and didn't see this stamp illustrated in the few pages that I thumbed through, or

b) I have no real interest in this stamp and don't want to know any more about it. I didn't browse an online library for possible catalogs or books, let alone even google it.

Jim

p.s. I come up with 186,291 usages of "rare" in the stamps category, worldwide.

I love how sellers often list "vintage" and "antique" stamps. I always thought vintage referred to wine, and that an antique was made prior to the Middle Ages. Rarity is apparently common too. L think I am immune to the hype now, fortunately.

I would add "WOW" to the original list, when the seller is beyond words to describe the stamp and wishes to share his/her feelings.

Yup. Those are red flags that the seller in question knows NOTHING about stamps whatsoever. They're either an antique dealer, flea market vendor, os someone who stumbled across some stamps at an estate auction or garage sale. Those aren't words that are used in philately.

I also love when someone's "old" stamps are from the 1970s or 1980s... that's "modern" IMO, at least with respect to stamps.

Don't forget "very rare" and you can find real winners like this:

Bermuda is in France now??

I should watch the news more often...

Jim

And Austria is still occupied by Germany: