I'm about to go against the flow of prevailing wisdom with a brief rumination on the subject of "rarity." I have touched on the subject before in Newsletter No.3 as part of a discussion of determining value and importance. As a refresher, you may want to re-read that issue before or after this one - I will avoid duplication as much as I can without leaving holes in this issue for those who wish to not re-read.

I'm sure I'm not the only one with "rarity burnout," so let this be a bit of a summer balm for that burn. A quick search on any online auction site will provide enough exposure to raging rampant rarity to produce a nasty scorch - apparently everything is rare! Humorously, it seems that the less a seller knows about what they are selling the rarer it is - ahhh, ignorance is bliss! But wait - why do people twist themselves in knots and stretch all credibility for the sake of claiming rarity? Why is rarity such a great thing anyway? That's a trick question because really, it's not.

Let's begin with the obvious; "rare" is a subjective and relative term. Subjective in as much as I teased at above - if in one person's experience they have only seen one or two of something, then to them, it is rare. Of course they may be very young and very inexperienced compared to the next person who has seen 100 of the thing in question. One ought to have to have a license to be allowed to declare rarity. As for being relative, for a collector of paintings in which no two are alike, it goes without saying (to the point of being irrelevant) that each one is rare, but to a collector of prints, a small edition of 3 is extremely rare, 5 is very rare, 10 is fairly rare, but anything over 30 is flatly not. Different examples abound in different fields, there is no number that can be applied universally to define rarity.
 
For a dealer, the easiest thing to do is to convince a naïve buyer that something is rare (I just know I'm going to hear from other dealers now). An esteemed Tiffany dealer once told me that rarity is the single most important factor in determining value, and their values range from $1000 to over $1,000,000 so there are some heavy duty dollar implications to their statement. But I argue for a considerable demotion of rarity and go so far as to say that rarity is utterly meaningless without some credible substantiation and a host of other factors to support the relevance of it.

Rarity is just a numbers game and nothing more - and perhaps one of the first maxims we all learned as children is that quantity does not equate to quality. So why are collectors so eager to ignore what would seem to be such a basic, cardinal rule of valuation and indeed turn it on its head completely and apply it indiscriminately? I'm guilty of doing this, it's a knee-jerk reaction to seeing anything you have not seen before or not had an opportunity to buy before (call it the greed factor) and I'm sure it's affected each one of us at one time or another. But cool heads and rationality must prevail over emotion and greed.
 
One thing I like to point out to collectors I work with is how easily one can shoot holes in the "rarity doctrine." Let's imagine for a minute two extreme hypothetical instances of rarity. In the best of circumstances rarity results from the item in question representing the pinnacle of workmanship and design; it is made with materials that are expensive, difficult to acquire and work - indeed it may be so difficult and costly to make that only one was ever made. In such a case, please disregard my argument against rarity and just buy the damn thing already! If not, read on.
 
On the other end of the scale, what if something is rare because it was a so-called "experimental" piece, a much abused term that refers to a sample, a test, a rough sketch. Such a piece can easily be too ugly and unsuccessful to justify wasting even 5 minutes and 5 cents worth of raw material on reproducing. Let's face it, those kind of disasters are a painfully common and an essential part of the creative process. Though each individual one may be rare, these (thankfully) unique failures exist in large numbers even taking into account the ones destroyed, deemed too ugly to live, by their creator. So, yes, such an item is very rare, but if you own it where will you hide this hideous beast? In other words, the cause for rarity is just as important as the rarity itself.
 
Now, some dealers - in an attempt to separate you from wads of money - will argue otherwise. They will tell you that the mere fact that only one or a limited few are supposed to exist that there will always be a strong demand even if the item in question is an irrelevant mess. Well, perhaps, because as they say, there is a sucker born every minute. But suckers are generally not at the top of the game and their budget is usually commensurate with their ability to distinguish true quality so cashing in on this demand will likely not mean a high value regardless how rare the item is.

A funny thing about rarity; it is subject to change. If we do not know with certainty (as for the most part we don't) the actual quantity produced of a given item, then rarity is determined based solely on the experience of the person declaring it. Let's assume for a minute that we do know production numbers within a reasonable margin of error, this actually does not improve our hopes of determining actual rarity much, unfortunately.

Say that we know that 500 of a given item was made 50 years ago, do we know how many were lost in transit, broken by the retailer, damaged by the owner, by natural disaster, or even thrown out? No, we can't even hope to. The best we can do is look around, ask around, over a long period of time (the longer the better) and based on that rather random knowledge, estimate how many of the item's original 500 now exist. I believe that with enough effort this can be done within a reasonable margin or error, and moreover eventually, with sustained interest, the market will prove the size of the supply as ever increasing values drag the last examples out of hiding. Until that unknowable moment arrives, assessments of rarity are most successfully done by those with more experience.
 
In my 10 or 11 years of serious involvement with Empoli and Blenko glass I have myself been proven wrong about rarity, to my great dismay. Yes, it was a humbling lesson, but in the end it did not change my assessment of the importance of the design or the value I place on it. Why? Because my argument for any item's value never hinges on rarity alone. Determining value based on rarity and nothing more is a fool's errand, one that I have always tried to avoid. Rarity is but one factor among several for determining value and is entirely separate from importance or beauty.

Regarding importance and rarity, some designs that can readily be identified as common are only common because the shape is so pleasing that it sold well and so was made in larger quantities over a longer period of time. To me, this can be an indication of an iconic design (though beware; more often it means the shape was cost-effective or generically timeless). An excellent example of in iconic design is the 5929L which was in production for 10 years, making it among the most common of floor decanters. The 5929L may not be rare but it is a superior design well worth owning as a perfect example of a complex balustrade form, well suited to the architectural scale. A design can be devoid of rarity and still have great value. Note, however, that with iconic designs it is wise to buy an example made in a rare color and to buy only top-quality, perfectly executed examples. Without rarity as a consideration you can be assured that there are enough out there that you can afford to wait for the perfect one to come along.
 
The flip side to the above point is just as relevant. If a silly little generic shape was made for only one year or even less (for instance something that was introduced in the Blenko Glass Company's supplemental mid-year line but then discontinued right after for lack of orders and so did not make it into a catalog) rarity is not going to make it more valuable. In the 50's for instance Wayne Husted was perhaps overly prolific; he made many redundant forms, many bowls that were only subtly different, modifications of previous shapes. Such pieces were cheaper to make because finishers did not have to be completely re-trained and old molds could be re-used. Technically they may be different designs, if only subtly different, but still nothing to write home about. Frankly, I don't care if only 5 were made, I don't want it; it is not worth the real estate it takes up because in the same period Husted created more exciting, innovative designs that I would infinitely rather have.
 
So finally, if rarity alone is not the be-all-and-end-all of valuation factors what is? Sorry to say there is no simple answer. Actually, no, I'm not sorry, because this is one of those beautiful, complex things that makes life exciting, it is part of the organic debate that MAKES culture, indeed that IS culture. I do not mean to discredit rarity, no, don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Rather, understand that rarity is a very slippery term with a considerable burden of proof, and it is only one factor to use amongst a host of others when determining the value of a piece.

Great rarity can put a great shape into the stratosphere but it is useless to a shape that has no other value. If you think of rarity last, as icing on the cake, like someone slipping a nice cold mojito into your hand long after you are already comfortable on the beach, laying back and relaxing in your lounge chair, umbrella overhead, feet in the water, listening to the sound of the waves. wait, where was I? Oh yes, rarity is the finishing touch, not the primary tool for determining value. Now please excuse me while I pack for my summer vacation.

Before I go though, I invite you to read more on rarity in Newsletter #3: Good, Better, Best: What Makes a Piece Exceptional including a contextualized passage on rarity with information not found in this Newsletter .

In closing, I would like to leave you with some specific, practical information, as no lesson is complete without real-world examples to demonstrate the application of knowledge: Of the over 50 Historic Period Blenko designs on my site (at time of publication) that were made for only one year, here are the  12 rarest ranked in order of rarity.

Damon Crain

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