Chris McCullough wrote: ↑Tue Oct 27, 2020 10:03 pm
Thank you
Was I correct in saying VR = Very Rare & SR = Super Rare?
Did I get the order of the rarity correct from top to bottom (most rare to least rare)? I understand the last question may be challenging to answer
I am pretty sure you are correct on the VR and SR.
As for the sequence, not exactly, but you are right it is challenging to answer.
I will try to correct the order as best I can and explain why I made a change.
UR = Ultra Rare
CT = CASE TOPPER
BT = BOX TOPPER
SR = Super Rare
VR = Very Rare
R+ = Rare Plus (33% more rare than rare)
R* = ALTERNATE BORDER COLOR RARE
P = Promotional
R = Rare
U = Uncommon
C = Common
S = STARTER DECK EXCLUSIVE
B = Borderless Promo
VP = Virtual Promos
V = Virtual
I think there is little argument that UR are the rarest. However some are more rare than others, for instance AU UR was
Future Enterprise which was released later in the Reflections set as
FOIL. It was also UR in this version. I can not tell you which is more rare or even if combined it is 2x more rare than another UR. There were 3 other UR in Reflections, 2 of which were reprints of rares (
Jean-Luc Picard and
Borg Queen) and 1 was a reprint of a
rare that had previously been issued as an
promo (
U.S.S. Defiant). SR and VR are only found on Foils in the Reflections set which are themselves reprints of rares from prior sets. Each box of reflections had 1 of 4 BT
Gowron of Borg (which was
P card),
Admiral Riker (which was released previously as
P,
Dr. Telek R'Mor (previously a
P and later released as a
rare), and
100,000 Tribbles - Clone (which was previously a
Rare). Assuming an even distribution that means you would get 1.5 of each of these 4 per case. There was a CT which was 1 per case, thus slightly more rare,
Seven of Nine (which was also a prior
P and later a
R+). I have no numbers to back it up, but it would seem that the CT and BT should be more rare than the SR and VR as you could often get duplicates of them in a single Reflections box.
Some later sets had R+ or R* in addition to the R. R were generally 2x as common as the R+ or R*. Some sets R+ was used for dual affiliation cards. These cards usually existed 2x on the rare sheet, 1x each affiliation. In the case of TMP set, this lead to each version being as rare as the UR if I am not mistaken. Promotional are hard to classify, there were several WB promos in some sets and also all 18 cards from the Fajo Set (these are all equal in rarity to each other). You also had promos in the anthologies which again have equal rarity within themselves. So if you bought Fajo or an Anthology, you got all of the cards in that set at one time. This leads me to Starter deck cards. The 8 cards in the Starter Deck II were fixed, every starter had them. In Voyager there were 20 of, but you didn't get every one in each starter. You also had fixed cards in Trouble with Tribbles, you could get
Lt. Sisko in every Federation starter and
Captain Koloth in every Klingon Starter. TwT also reproduced several cards with Tribbles added to the artwork (27 of these randomly inserted in the starters).
The last 3 should be taken with a grain of salt. Borderless promos, virtual promos and virtual are all produced by The Continuing Committee and not Decipher. Almost all of the Borderless promos are physical cards. There are currently 19 and only 1 is printable without the watermark. There are several hundred virtual promos and many are printable and of course the virtual cards are printable, so in theory there are as many as you could want of those, making them more common than common. I have no idea how many of each Borderless promo has been made, so they may in fact be more rare than the rarest UR.
I hope this has helped you get a sense of scope on these cards. I didn't even mention until now the 18 card Enterprise Collection with are all P and only come in Foil version. This was the final Decipher product for 1E.