This was originally posted at Miniature Trading on February 23rd, 2015
Ranking the rarest Pirates CSG items
While making the Thread of Threads I really got absorbed in reading about all of the old collecting days with new sets, eBay, and rare items.
Is it possible to rank the rarest items in Pirates CSG? Especially with some of the collectors no longer on the forum, it will be more difficult than it would have been a few years ago.
1. “1 of 1’s” – game pieces that have only one known copy in existence
-F&S 135 Castigue
-F&S 136 Blue Heron
Here are the Castigue and Blue Heron, picture courtesy of old_man. You can also see them in this picture along with the “Black Beauty” and 1 masted galley metal supersized ships, made by burnthills. The Sea Dragon is a custom fan-made Vieil Homme made for old_man by J_ARRRRR_P.
-F&S 137 – ???
-F&S 138 – ???
These two (as well as the Ochobrazo) could be out there somewhere. Neither old_man nor any other public collectors can verify their physical existence. There is also a mythical version of Sir Christopher Myngs, brought to light by algorab. Searching google for the picture brought up this site, which I had never seen before. The five master also looks like a prototype because it doesn’t appear to be either the Revenant or Harbinger based on the hull.
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2.
As for other goodies, the rankings quickly become more difficult. There are supposedly around 30 Obago Deuce’s, and some small number of Scandinavian Islands: (from Wikipedia)
2008 – Promo Ship Obago Deuce – This extremely rare ship was scheduled to be a late year promo for in-store handout, but was only distributed in very limited quantities to employees and convention-helper Privateers. Some have made their way out on the resellers market as well. About 30 are known to exist, but more are assumed to have been printed. As such, this is the rarest ‘produced ship’ in the series, and highly sought after by collectors, though thoroughly unspectacular in game-play.
(13 of them given to the pdxyar.org (Portland) group, with another 17 apparently out there as well. After at least one (?) was burnt to a crisp (lol) there may be 29 in existence.)
-Two Home islands released with the “Donald Duck & Co. #26” (Kalle Anka) comic magazine only in Scandinavia on 7/20/06 – these packs contained two ships (El Cazadora & Glorious Treasure, both identical to their English releases), a paper slip of treasure coins to cut out, rules, and two cardboard islands which are labelled “Home” on one side. Due to their limited distribution, these two islands are highly prized by completist collectors and quite hard to come by.
3.
Other notably hard-to-acquire pieces:
-ROTF LE’s
-F&S LE’s
-DJC LE’s
-CC LE’s
(from Wikipedia:)
2004 – Scrye the Explorer (SM card # PP735) – Exclusive Explorer crew packed in the Sept. 2004 Scrye magazine (issue 75) along with the ship Bloody Throne.
2004 – The Bloody Throne (SM card # PP375) – Exclusive three-masted ship packed in the Sept. 2004 Scrye magazine (issue 75) with the crew card “Scrye the Explorer”.
2006 – Gale Force Nine (SCS card # 301) – A four-masted Pirate ship LE, free by mail with proof-of-purchase when you buy either one of two island terrain sets from the Gale Force Nine game company.
2008 – Rise of the Fiends Cursed Ship (Specter) – originally customers had to mail in the Specter story (a paper insert) from a pack, but after a packaging problem in which few of these actually packed, WizKids changed this to any story from this set, plus a receipt & postage.
2008 – Fire & Steel Cursed Scorpion Ship (Chum Maker) – customers had to mail in the Chum Maker story (a paper insert) from a pack plus a receipt, wrapper and postage.
PP-471 Bust – Advantage Trophy A larger plastic bust given as a prize in 2005 – this one is painted in multiple colors
2008 – Rise of the Fiend “Stories”, one of ten possible paper inserts in booster packs telling different crew/ship stories. A packing error made these stories very hard to collect as they do not appear in every pack as advertised – more like one in ten packs.
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Does someone actually have the Scandinavian comic book itself? It would be interesting to see scans of the relevant pages.
Can anyone verify that the Grinder was harder to acquire than the other 3 mega cards found in the tins? I mention this since some of the older topics made me wonder.
Any help filling out this list would be great, but I realize it’s subjective after ranking the 1 of 1’s and Obago Deuce.
Original thread at Miniature Trading – click to open in new tab for full size
What about captain whitebeard and The Sleigh?
@Jeremiah: I have no idea how rare they are, but they don’t really belong on this list as far as I know. Might ask Holofernes.
Thanks!
Ben
Chiming in late re. Captain Whitebeard/The Sleigh: I absolutely love this promo pack for its novelty, but at least in the past, it wasn’t terribly hard to come by. I snarfed up “a few” on eBay years ago & didn’t feel fleeced. Many others on MT seemed to have also acquired one or more w/out a whole lotta fuss. In any event, it’s pure fun!
@J_ARRRRR_P: Indeed, the Sleigh and Whitebeard used to be easier to come by. I remember the pair going for about $10 on eBay pretty consistently.
Thanks for commenting!
Ben
How rare are the German cards?
Like Roter Teufel etc.
and how rare are the
SE Cards in German
like Broken Key etc.
I m from Germany and they are hard to find…
@Lukas: The foreign language versions of cards are one of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to Pirates CSG knowledge. I think the German cards like Roter Teufel are somewhat rare.
DJC SE cards in German are probably rarer I would imagine, mostly since I haven’t really seen anyone discussing those before that I can remember.
You could try asking old_man, the greatest collector in the game’s history that also happens to be in Germany (assuming he still lives there).
Ben
Found what might be a factory defect in the RotF series. Please contact about this.
@Austin: What kind of defect?
Yes i think so 2 i got some DJC cards in German but it was only at the biggest board game convention in EU.
I never could buy one later…
Same thing was with the MI Promos in German.
They just showed up on that convention.
Maybe i got finally some rare stuff xD