Rarest TrackMaster Trains

For example?
Rare doesn't necessarily mean what you are looking for?
Rare doesn't necessarily mean what you have.

What rare means?
Is how hard it is to find! Right now! Today! past week? Past month? Past year? If something takes longer than a year to find?
That is called rare.
However? If you drift into variants? Promotional? Factory defects? Or the unconfirmed?
We will remain in purgatory. And get little to no where!

Think about a piece in your personal collections.
Think about how long it took you to get that piece?
Did it take a day? a week? a month? A year? 2 years? 3 years?

Now take that same piece?
And try to find it again!
Will it take you a day? a week? A month? A year?
If it takes a year or longer?

That would equate to rare.

I believe that in addition to if we can currently find an item, a major factor of rarity is how many were originally made. In the case of Alfie and Monty, for someone in America, it will probably take them much longer to obtain a Monty than an Alfie due to its location. However, for someone in Europe, it would most likely be quite a bit harder to find an Alfie. In the end though, I would say that Alfie is rarer because we know that he had a limited production run, whereas Monty was likely produced for a longer period of time.

The true question being asked in this case is when deciding rarity, do we factor in something’s current availability anywhere in the world, or its obtainability based on your geographical location? I personally believe the former is a better way of determining rarity, in which case Alfie is almost assuredly rarer.

Also, when counting rarity, I think we can only include items that were in some way available to people other than the manufacturers. This includes promotional items, items given away shareholders, regular releases and variants, etc. but does not include prototypes or canceled items that never made it out of the factory.

I do think that Monty and Alfie are equal in terms of rarity.
Alfies occasionally pop up for sale but Montys: almost never. While there are quite a bit more Montys than Alfies, Alfie is more accesible due to the fact he was released in Canada, so their "rare qualities" balance them out and are equal (in my eyes).

I think the Yujin pullbacks are more common than people think, they just rarely listed in a way that makes them easy to find


Conversely, I think that 1993 Henry set is a lot harder to find in the box than people think - I've seen plenty of Donald and Douglas sets go up for sale, several even unused (one of my own included), several Alfies and a few Montys come up... when was the last time anyone saw a boxed Henry set come up? Admittedly, I have not been keeping as close an eye on the auctions the last few months as I had been doing for several years, but the other made in Japan era sets were readily available boxed or loose, and I don't even remember seeing the Henry set come up without the box

Wow, I guess the Yujins really aren’t that rare, just hard to identify in large lots. I’ve seen quite a few boxed D&D sets too, as well as an Alfie every few months or so; however, I haven’t seen many Montys, but this is probably due to them mostly being on European auction sites that I don’t check. I have not seen a Henry set recently, though I haven’t looked much for it specifically.

I think that you are underestimating your talent and ability to find and accumulate these Duck…lol
They are 24 year old, very obscure, unknown foreign toys, that unless you know where to look for them, AND what to look for, might as well be considered unobtainable.
That’s pretty much the same scenario as Monty.
Monty, like the Candy Thomas was also mass produced, and people even knew that he existed from FisherPrice advertising, but no one knew where to find one, until he was found in Poland, and though many have surfaced and made their way onto western websites for sale since then, 90% of them were only ever sold by just two different Polish eBay sellers.
Most people have never seen or heard of the Candy Thomas or would recognize it’s packaging either.
I don’t think that I have ever seen a Candy Thomas or Percy ever offered up to this day on eBay, Amazon, or made available for sale anywhere in North America, so if you listed one of yours on eBay it would be just like when the first Monty was ever auctioned off too…Which was a pretty RARE event.

What if the Thomas' Christmas train Pack is like the Monty saga: maybe it was released in a certain place or time we won't expect.
Maybe we just don't know where to look.

Yes GGF from what I’ve found it seems that it was England.
Smyth’s chain had them, and the small independent retailer Tootally Thomas also received a single shipment of them too.
Apparently Tootally Thomas was informed that what he got was all that he’d be getting, and limited purchases to one per buyer.
They both have them listed now as sold out.

Not necessarily just the UK, however most of the sites that supposedly once sold them are British.
Walmart has them but out of stock.
I have not seen them at all on smyths, however I did once speculate they may be there as that was one of the only places for gold thomas and metallic gordon.