Rare Pepe

About

Rare Pepes are unique illustrations and photoshops of the character Pepe the Frog which are ostensibly valued as if they are trading cards based on their relative saturation on the web. After a collection was posted for sale on eBay in March 2015, Rare Pepes have been frequently listed by users on other online marketplaces.

Origin

Starting in October 2014, users on the /r9k/ (robot9000) board on 4chan began referring to original illustrations and photoshops of Pepe the Frog as "Rare Pepes"; sharing the "rare" images of Pepe as if they were trading cards, some of which were posted with watermarks to retain their value (shown below).

Spread

On March 28th, 2015, an anonymous 4chan user submitted a thread to the /r9k/^[2] board, which confessed to stockpiling “rare Pepe” images in order to “flood the market” and depreciate their value (shown below).

On March 31st, a post was submitted to /r9k/^[3] highlighting an Imgur gallery^[15] with over 1,200 pictures of Pepe. In the first week, the gallery received more than 260,000 views. In early April, the collection of Pepe images were listed on eBay, where it reached a price of $99,166 before being removed from the site (shown below).

On April 1st, the /r/rarepepemarket^[13] subreddit was launched for discussions about the images. On April 3rd, the Internet humor site Smosh^[4] published an article about the rare Pepe images. The same day, YouTuber mustard uploaded a video titled "1,200 Rare Pepe Memes for Sale," featuring a slideshow of Rare Pepe images (shown below).

Also on August 3rd, Redditor QuahogBay submitted a post asking for an explanation of the Rare Pepe phenomenon to the /r/OutOfTheLoop^[7] subreddit, garnering upwards of 1,200 votes (92% upvoted) and 200 comments in five months. By April 9th, there were over 230 “rare Pepe” listings on eBay.^[5] On April 12th, The Daily Dot^[8] published an article about the origins of the Rare Pepe meme. On May 11th, BuzzFeed^[6] published an article about Rare Pepes online. On May 18th, YouTuber ayy caramba uploaded a clip from an Israeli television show with fake subtitles discussing a Rare Pepe economic crash (shown below).

Online Listings

In the coming months, additional postings selling Rare Pepes were postings on eBay,^[9] with over 230 active listings as of September 2015. Additionally, ads for Rare Pepe collections were created on Craigslist.^[10] On August 13th, 2015, an ad titled "Seeking Rare Pepe Trader – Third Roomate" was created on the Chicago Craigslist board.^[11] On September 9th, a request to buy Rare Pepes for $50 was placed on the New York City Craigslist^[10] board (shown below). The same day, The Daily Dot^[12] published an article about the Craigslist listings.

Market Exchange

In September 2016, the site RarePepeWallet was created as a database for Rare Pepe images formatted as trading cards, which can be traded using the cryptocurrencies Counterparty or PepeCash.

In February 2017, Bitcointalk Forums^[15] member American Pegasus purchased a card design titled "My Little Pepe," featuring an illustration of Wojak riding Pepe the Frog (shown below), for 1 million PepeCash (approximately $3,500 at the time of sale).

On February 13th, Twitter user @ActualAdviceBTC tweeted that Pepe would be bigger than Dogecoin, since it can "literally rarify memes" (shown below). On February 21st, The Daily Dot^[16] published an article about RarePepeWallet titled "The Rare Pepe economy is real, and there's serious money behind it."

Homer Pepe

On July 3rd, 2017, a Homer Simpson-themed Rare Pepe was placed for sale for auction, starting at 250 of the Counterparty (XCP) cyrptocurrency (shown below).^[17]

On January 13th, 2018, the card sold for 350,000 PepeCash, valued at approximately $38,500 USD that day, at a Rare Pepe auction in New York, New York. According to an article on Motherboard,^[18] the auctioneer referred to the card as the "most expensive Rare Pepe in existence." The buyer of this Rare Pepe was a man named Peter Kell.

In January 2020, the documentary film Feels Good Man included a segment on Rare Pepes and a scene featuring Peter Kell showing off the Homer Pepe card.

On February 27th, 2021, Kell made a post to his Instagram^[19] account featuring the Homer Pepe card he bought three years ago and said he sold it for 205 ETH (Ethereum), roughly $312,000 at the time (shown below).

Interview with Know Your Meme

On March 5th, 2021, following the sale of the Homer Pepe card a week before, Know Your Meme interviewed Peter Kell about the full story of the Rare Pepe card and how it was sold (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References