Throughout this site you will see a rarity score mentioned next to bottles. This is my own subjective opinion based on my personal experiences collecting and speaking with many Blanton's extreme collectors.  In addition, I have spent countless hours researching and developing this website. This rarity index correlates to obtainability. Rare does not always mean valuable. Indeed, some rare bottles are even less valuable than more common varieties.

 

Common

This bottle is sold on the primary US market.  The original 93 proof Blanton's, and now Gold and STFB are examples.  While they might not seem common because you can't usually find them easily in your local liquor store, they are produced in generally large quantities and are easily found online even at inflated prices.

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Uncommon

Generally, bottles that are only distributed to international markets fall into this category Simply because they are not sold in retail in the USA.  They are usually available on the secondary market if you want to pay for it. Examples would include Japanese "Takara" releases (Black, Red, Takara Gold).

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Rare

Pretty difficult to find, but if you have the cash, you can get it with a bit of hunting.  Blanton's Silver is a good example. It's been discontinued for 10+ years now. It's out there, but you have to either pay a huge (overinflated) amount at one of the few US liquor stores selling it online, or convince someone to sell you one they previously hunted. 

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Rare+

More difficult than Rare...a bottle in this category would be something like the "Memory of Yujiro" and "30th Anniversary"  Exclusive to Japan they will pop up once or twice a year online if you know where to look and have a way to get them back to the USA. 

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Exceptionally Rare

Pretty damn hard.  Likely you won't see this bottle pop up for sale very frequently and you need to hunt for quite a while to get one. Examples include some older La Maison du Whisky bottles. With the market for Blanton's (and Bourbon in general) obviously exploding, this category is rapidly merging with Unicorns as bottles disappear.

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Unicorn

Have a kidney to sell?  You'll have to do that to afford one of these...and that's if you can find it. An example is the Sterling Silver bottle.  Extremely low production and with less than 15 known to exist with collectors. These bottles never turn up "for sale." You have to hunt and work your network for years to acquire one. Buy a new car instead or simply collect something else.