Rare Pepe lore & sources
A living, classified bibliography of everything worth citing about the Rare Pepe project — from the original Directory to museum shows — with each source badged by how reliable it is, not just what it says.
Rare Pepe history is a mix of hard on-chain fact, official Directory rules, first-hand Scientist accounts, serious journalism, and a great deal of colourful community lore. They are not equally reliable, so we tag every entry on a six-tier provenance ladder — and you can regroup the whole list by source type, by provenance tier, or by topic.
A note on the Book of Kek
@pepe and Carbono) — reliable, but not an official Scientist-certified document. We badge it Documented, not Canon. Canon (📜) is reserved for the Directory's own rules and claims confirmed by the founder “Mike” plus multiple Scientists.Official Directory(5)
The original submission registry of the 1,774 certified Rares. Submissions now closed.
⚠ HTTP-only legacy site — archive via Wayback Machine.
The official submission rules: 400×560px, non-divisible, locked, issuance 100–100k, PEPECASH fee, one/day, no NSFW.
⚠ HTTP-only.
Step-by-step onboarding for creating and submitting a Rare Pepe.
⚠ HTTP-only.
Book of Kek Wiki(12)
The de-facto canonical, community-maintained Rare Pepe encyclopedia by Pepe Inc.
How Pepe moved onto Counterparty — the origin of the project.
Master overview: the 1,774 certified Rares, the rules, Counterparty issuance.
History and role of the Directory + the submission rules.
RAREPEPE (card #1), HOMERPEPE, NAKAMOTOCARD and other landmark cards.
Per-series lore index (note: the wiki omits dedicated pages for Series 11 and 14).
The Rare Digital Art Festival / HOMERPEPE auction and other landmark sales.
Pepe the Frog’s creator and the character’s pre-blockchain history.
The wiki’s own curated external-link list — a good canonical cross-check.
Community Sites(14)
The "36 series explained" overview of curation.
How the Scientists reviewed and certified submissions.
Landmark cards and their auction/sale records.
"The Dankest Rare Pepe News on the Webz" — the project’s own era news/announcements blog.
⚠ Some pages served over HTTP.
The canonical community write-up of the 1/1 single-issuance cards.
Primary-source transcript of the earliest archived Theo Goodman XCP auction.
The full run of 2016–2017 live-auction transcripts and inventories.
⚠ HTTP.
Early interview with Scientist / auctioneer Theo Goodman.
Searchable index of every certified Rare Pepe.
Journalism(12)
The canonical secondary overview: Furie → Mike’s 2016 cards → the Wallet → HOMERPEPE → Fake Rares → Sotheby’s.
Jason Bailey’s foundational interview with Joe Looney — a primary crypto-art-history text.
Long-form retrospective on the Counterparty origins and later resales.
The Emblem-wrapped Nakamoto card sale; how bridging to Ethereum worked.
Rare contemporaneous 2016 press coverage of the project’s birth.
Interview with Artnet’s NFT specialist on Rare Pepe market history.
⚠ Resolves in-browser; bot-blocked.
Literary eyewitness account of the Jan 2018 festival where HOMERPEPE sold.
⚠ Resolves in-browser; bot-blocked.
Long-form retrospective feature on Looney and the Wallet.
⚠ Expired TLS cert — archive before citing.
Essay situating Rare Pepe as an NFT foundation and its move to Ordinals.
⚠ Resolves in-browser.
The record PEPENOPOULOS sale at Sotheby’s (secondary confirmation).
Museum & Academic(2)
Primary institutional documentation of Rare Pepe entering a major Kunsthalle.
The most academic/curatorial-journal entry on the DYOR show.
Data & Explorers(4)
Ranks all cards by rarity (issued / burned / remaining), with per-series pages 1–36.
Block explorer for Counterparty assets, orders, issuances and sends (by CoinDaddy).
The long-standing Counterparty block explorer.
⚠ Resolves in-browser; blocks automated fetch (403).
All-in-one Rare / Fake / Dank Pepe explorer and marketplace hub.
Marketplaces & Archives(4)
Wrapped Counterparty assets — Rare Pepes tradable on Ethereum via Emblem Vault.
Microfilm preservation of all 1,774 cards, compiled from the Directory, pepe.wtf, and the 1774 book.
Media & Interviews(3)
Interview on the HOMERPEPE story and its later resale.
Conference talk by Scientist Theo Goodman on Rare Pepe as a real-world blockchain use case.
Scientists Bench and Shawn Leary in conversation.
Related Projects(3)
The canonical directory for Fake Rares — the post-2021 derivative movement led by Rare Scrilla.
Wiki chapter on the Fake Rares and Dank Rares successor projects.
Reference(3)
Neutral aggregated overview and timeline (PEPENOPOULOS, HOMERPEPE, DYOR).
A recurring claim of a Christie’s Rare Pepe sale. No Christie’s lot exists — the major auction-house sale was Sotheby’s (PEPENOPOULOS, ~$3.65M). Treat "Christie’s" as a conflation.
Spotted a broken link or a missing source?