Or perhaps I should say, the scarcest? The recent Logan Paul video has sparked a conversation around the rarity/scarcity of the 1999 1st edition booster boxes. Which boxes are considered scarcer?
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I still think base 1st is the rarest. For scarcity, a lot of boxes are pretty scarce: skyridge, vs series, deoxys come to mind.
Hard to imagine there are any more scarce than first edition base. There may be several out there in collections, but the supply on the market at any given time is extremely low.
Unlike other sets, the price has been high for a long time so the financial incentive to sell a “hidden cache” has been there. These boxes just don’t exist in the quantity people want. I think we’ve seen this confirmed by the 500+% increase in the price of the set cards this year.
If you take Japanese boxes into consideration, I guess unlimited World Champions Pack (ex Power Keepers) is a hot contender.
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Jamboree.
In seriousness – maybe Japanese Base No Rarity?
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English only? 1st edition Base Set and Red Logo Pack Fossil/Jungle booster boxes, and maybe Skyridge as well somewhat.
Japanese included? Some unlimited edition sets that do have booster boxes. The World Champions Pack mentioned above comes to mind, but was only sold as 25-card booster packs and no booster boxes were available a.f.a.i.k. Unlimited E1 comes to mind as well, but we don’t know for sure where they come from. I’ve heard rumors it came from decks given at certain events, but there are some cards like Charizard and Alakazam that can’t be explained that way. I doubt there were any booster boxes for this set, though.
Maybe unlimited edition L2/L3 booster boxes? Or the No Rarity Base Set (where there booster boxes of these at all actually, @shizzlemetimbers )? And some Japanese booster boxes from the PCG era are also almost non-existent, as mentioned by @fourthstartcg in this quote:
All languages? 1st edition Spanish Neo Genesis is close to non-existent (even took me 4 years to find a Spanish 1st edition Pikachu for my own collection to give you an idea how rare the single cards already are). 1st edition Portuguese Jungle sets are pretty rare as well; Korean unlimited edition Base Set comes to mind of course; I can imagine the two Polish booster boxes aren’t too easy to come by either; Dutch unlimited edition Base Set booster boxes are pretty rare as well (1st edition not really on the other hand). And there are probably more examples.
Greetz,
Quuador
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If you are looking for the rarest boxes.
IN NO PARTICULAR ORDER
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Japanese UNL World Champions Pack booster “case” not traditional in terms of a booster box as it holds the aesthetic of a deck case but they are randomly inserted packs making it technically speaking a booster box
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Japanese Base Set and Jungle “Short Pack” Variants nO rAriTy??
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Japanese 1st edition/UNL Golden Sky Silvery Ocean [ex Unseen Forces] Have personally only seen one which was from Pkonno so he probably printed it
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Japanese UNL L2 - L3 I have never seen the existence of these particular boxes but they can be assumed as existing in very limited supply from the loose packs I have seen over the years.
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1st Edition Base Set, English
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Japanese UNL e-series booster boxes are a runner up in terms of rarity
Something to keep in mind is that rarity is really only a factor in terms of what we have seen for the supply of these boxes. Many of these sets are very obscure meaning that the demand is not high enough for collectors or Japanese stores to really go out of their way to notice if they may have some of the product listed. Low demand and awareness of these sets is a hindrance in incentive for new product to be posted.
One thing for sure is that rarity on these releases is very speculative. Please don’t take peoples word when they say [X amount of my Skyridge or 1st edition box exist] We really don’t and can’t know the true number of intact sealed examples of x amount of product is still remaining as these were “mass” produced
Hopefully this was accurate. If I got anything wrong please let me know and I can edit my post 
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Generations
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@umbreon, Brilliant! A couple of additional boxes to consider adding to your list:
1995 TopSun
1997 TOMY Scratch
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1st Edition base, the 1st edition Neo boxes and Skyridge ~
By scarce you mean the number of copies on the market? If so, certain EX Series boxes are the scarcest English boxes (more so than e-Series boxes by a large margin). A few examples off the top of my head are Unseen Forces, Delta Species, and EX Dragon. For those sets, there have been 2-3 of each that have hit the market this entire year. Whereas I’ve seen at least 6-7 1st Edition Base boxes come up for sale this year. This does not necessarily mean that the EX Series boxes are rarer – just that they are scarcer.
If we’re talking about rarity (the number of a given box in existence), no one is going to be able to answer that authoritatively.
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@zorloth Yes, you’re absolutely correct that this exercise is merely speculation, and I am focused on scarcity as I hinted at in my OP. I’m just seeking opinions and guesses as to which it might be. In that regard, thanks for your submission for English!
The most informed long-term collectors are here on E4. I suspect many have tracked individual product markets for years (English and/or Japanese sets) and may have a general feel for how limited certain booster boxes are relative to others.
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Korean base unl and 1st ed. Extremely low print runs to begin with. Most of the base set foreign language boxes were very short printed from my understanding and 1st ed would be more common to find sealed today than unl versions. English this is obviously not the case of course
Definitely, it’s funny though because when these show up for sale in Japan they’re almost always under 10,000 JPY whilst the 1st Edition ones are 50,000+ JPY. I’ve still not even seen an unlimited World Champions Pack Pichu - it’s the only main set card I’m missing from my collection.
It’s rumoured that the unlimited E1 cards come from a box which was awarded to 50 “lucky award” winners of the 2002 Shogakukan Spring Break Illustration Contest, but as @quuador mentioned that isn’t confirmed in any way. If that is true that’d probably be the rarest box.
Korean Base Unlimited hands down
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Yeah I reckon Korean base too. IIRC Japanese imports were illegal at the time of launch (or restrictions were recently lifted) so these sets may not have actually been sold in Korea.
I believe a lot of Japanese comic books etc were actually sold in the black market up until that point.
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Everything mentioned in this thread has appeared in the wild previously except Korean Unlimited. No booster box has ever appeared if one exists*
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I’ve been collecting the 1997 TOMY Scratch cards for a couple of years now and the booster boxes are pretty scarce for this set. Series1 is hard to come by, but Series2 boxes just don’t surface. I’ve only ever seen one unopened Series 2 Tomy Scratch booster box posted.
(Image of a Series 2 pack & booster box from 1997 TOMY Scratch)
Does anyone else have one of these Series 2 boxes or know of any?
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They say certain Topsun pokemon booster boxes are incredibly hard to find. I don’t remember which series is the hardest.
Also very curious about the number of Carddass Bandai boxes still out there for the various sets. I know Gary had a huge lot, but those dont pop up that often either.