One only needs to look at results and see that Eddy is in a class by himself. Only Coppi and Hinault are close enough that if it were a race they might be able to see him
Talking about palmares has become boring (at least to me). But it is fun to look at doing something special, something that combines events in a single year or a special performance in one event.
In 1969 Eddy rode the Tour de France for the first time. He won it by over 17 minutes. That was more than the COMBINED winning margins from the previous 7 years. He also won the KOM and Sprinters competitions, the most agressive rider award and the final stage. His team won the team competition. In short everythnig. Aside from Eddy only Hinault has won all three jerseys in a carreer. The year before Eddy won all 3 Jerseys (and his team won the team prize) in hte Giro. No one else has won all 3 in a career.
In the TDF one rider has won more than one jersey in hte same year only 11 times. 4 of those times the rider was Eddy. Two others did it twice, Coppi and Bartoli.
As beat I can find since the second world war only two riders have won the final stage, when it was not a time trial and also won the tour. Those two were Hinault who did it twice and Eddy Merckx. I guess I should mention that of Eddy's 5 wins only once was the final stage not a time trial.
One of the marks of a great tour rider is the double, winning two grand tours in the same year. This has been done only 16 times by a total of 8 riders. Every rider who has won either the Giro or Tour 5 times since WW II has done the double at least twice, except for Lance Armstrong who never tried. Hinault did it 3 times and Merckx 4 times.
There is something called the triple crown. This is winning the Tour, the Giro and the Worlds in the same year. It has only been done twice, By Eddy Merckx and Stephen Roche. If you expand the idea a bit to look at Paris- Roubaix and the Vuelta and ask if anyone has ever won any two of the tours and either the Worlds or Paris Roubaix you find that there is onloy one person who has done so (excluding the two cases listed above). Eddy twice won the Tour, the Giro and Paris Roubaix and once won the Giro, the Vuelta and Paris Roubaix.
Winning multiple jerseys in multiple tours is a great accomplishment. In fact in a career only 4 riders have done it. Eddy Merckx, Fausto Coppi, Gino Bartoli and Tony Romminger. Eddy is the only one to win multiple jerseys in all three tours. In fact the only jersey from a grand tour that Eddy has not won is the KOM fot the Vuelta. In the one time he rode the Vuelta he won the GC and Sprinters jerseys and finsihed second in the KOM.
For Eddy it is easier to list the few major races and awards he has not won than to list what he has won. He does not have a Vuelta KOM jersey and never won Paris-Tours.