COLLECTING
RAINBOWS
One card, every color. "Chasing the rainbow" is one of the most rewarding and most difficult pursuits in the hobby. Here's what a rainbow is, why it's so hard to finish, and how to build one.
Table of Contents
What Is a Rainbow?
A rainbow is every colored parallel of the same card: one player, one card number, one design, collected together in a single set. A parallel is an alternate version of a base card that keeps the same photo and layout but changes the color, foil, or finish (see Card Types). Line up all of those colors side by side and you get a spectrum: a rainbow.
The phrase you'll hear most is "chasing the rainbow." It means deliberately hunting down each color of a specific card until the run is complete, from the most common parallel all the way up to the 1/1 at the top.
A rainbow is always one card number. A 2025 Topps Chrome Bobby Witt Jr. rainbow is every color of his base card #150. It is not a mix of different players, and not his inserts or autos. Same card, every finish.
Anatomy of a Rainbow
Every product defines its own color ladder, and each color has a print run that gets rarer as you climb. Here's a typical modern Topps Chrome or Bowman Chrome rainbow, from most common at the bottom to the 1/1 at the top. The right column shows roughly where each color lives, which matters a lot when you go to build one.
- Base Refractor (unnumbered)Hobby & Retail
- Teal Refractor /299Hobby
- Aqua Refractor /199Hobby
- Blue Refractor /150Hobby
- Green Refractor /99Hobby
- Gold Refractor /50Hobby
- Orange Refractor /25Hobby
- Black Refractor /10Hobby
- Red Refractor /5Hobby
- Superfractor 1/1One copy on Earth
That's the "hobby" spine of the rainbow. But most products also print retail only colors that never appear in a hobby box, such as Sepia, Pink, Aqua Ice, and Fuchsia, sold only in blaster, mega, or hanger boxes. If your definition of "complete" includes those, the rainbow gets much longer.
How Big Is a Rainbow? Mini vs. Master
"Rainbow" isn't a fixed number of cards. It's a goal you define. Collectors generally talk about three sizes:
Just the numbered hobby colors, the main spine (e.g. Blue, Green, Gold, Orange). A realistic first goal that still looks great displayed together.
Every color in the core hobby ladder, base parallel through the 1/1. This is what most people mean when they say they're "building a rainbow."
Every parallel that exists: hobby plus every retail and online exclusive, printing plates, and the 1/1. Few rainbows are ever truly finished at this level.
Deciding which size you're chasing before you start is the single most useful thing you can do. A mini rainbow of a star might cost a weekend of buying; a master rainbow of the same player can take years and include cards that are currently sitting in someone else's permanent collection.
Why Rainbows Are So Hard to Complete
Buying ten colored cards of one player sounds simple. It isn't, and here's why.
1. Colors are split across box types. Manufacturers deliberately make some colors hobby only and others retail only. To finish a rainbow you often have to buy, or buy from people who bought, hobby boxes, blasters, megas, hangers, and online exclusive products. No single box type contains every color. See Box Types Explained for which products carry which exclusives.
2. Every card is a different serial number. A rainbow isn't ten cards you can order off one page. Each color is a separate card with its own print run and its own individual copies, scattered across the world in different collections. You're not buying a set. You're hunting more than ten separate needles.
3. Scarcity compounds at the top. The colors with the smallest print runs (/10, /5) may only surface for sale a handful of times a year. You can spend months waiting for a single copy of one color to be listed at all, never mind at a price you'll pay.
4. Star player tax. The more popular the player, the more competition for every color, and the higher every card sits. A rainbow of a superstar rookie can cost more than a car; a rainbow of a role player might be very achievable.
The 1/1 Wall
The single hardest card in any rainbow is the 1/1 at the top: the Superfractor in Chrome, the Black parallel in Prizm, or a printing plate. There is exactly one in the world, and completing a "true" rainbow means owning it.
This creates a hard wall. The person who owns the 1/1 may not want to sell at any price, especially for a popular player. Many otherwise complete rainbows sit one card short, every color except the 1/1, sometimes for years, waiting for the single copy to come to market.
Because of this, plenty of collectors define their finish line as "everything but the 1/1" and treat the Superfractor or Black as a lifetime aspiration rather than a requirement. There's no wrong answer. You set the goal.
How to Build a Rainbow
- Pick your player and card number first. Confirm the exact base card number, because the rainbow is tied to that number, not just the player. A player can have a base card, an insert, and a subset card that all look similar.
- Set your finish line. Mini, standard, or master? Including the 1/1 or not? Write it down so you know when you're done.
- Pull the full color list. Get the definitive parallel list for that product before you buy anything, so you don't discover a retail only color you missed halfway through.
- Buy the easy colors first. Lock in the base parallel and the higher print run colors while they're cheap and plentiful. They get harder to find as a product ages.
- Set alerts for the scarce colors. The /10, /5, and 1/1 rarely list. You want to know the moment one appears, not stumble on it a week later after it's gone.
- Be patient with the top end. The last two or three colors are 80% of the work. Expect the tail of the rainbow to take far longer than the start.
Rainbow Etiquette & Community
Rainbows are one of the most social collecting goals. Because the cards are scattered across many people, finishing one usually means trading and negotiating, not just buying.
Rainbow "help" posts. Collectors routinely post the colors they still need and ask the community to check their collections. If you own a color someone is chasing, you're often their only realistic path to it.
Selling to a rainbow. A single color is usually worth more to someone completing a rainbow of that exact card than to a general buyer. If you pull an oddball color of a player you don't collect, a rainbow builder may be your best sale.
Showing it off. A completed rainbow is meant to be displayed together, and all the colors of one card in a single row is the payoff for the whole chase.
How Rip Chaser Helps
Rip Chaser is built around exactly the information a rainbow chase needs:
- The full parallel list per product. Every product page shows its color ladder, so you can see the whole rainbow you're committing to before you start.
- Print runs on every color. The "/#" on each parallel tells you how many copies exist, so you can see which colors are the cheap early wins and which are the /5 and below wall.
- Odds by box type. Each color shows which box type it comes from and at what odds, so you know where a color lives before you go hunting it. See How Odds Work.
- Listing awareness for scarce cards. The scarcest colors barely ever list, so knowing the moment a /5 or 1/1 surfaces is the difference between finishing a rainbow and missing it.