A few things to talk about today...

So first off a few items we wanted to cover on trading etiquette.

1. When you are actively buying something from someone, be prepared to make an offer.  If you want something in particular and are offering something other than liquid (keys, metal, buds) TF2 currency you will probably have to overpay.  A seller who isn't looking for your dirty Batter's Helm isn't necessarily going to give you the full value.  Why should they?
2. Actively selling something while only saying "offer" and "I know the price" and threatening to report lowballers (very humorous) just makes you appear silly.  If you don't know the price, for example of a low craft # item or an unusual just say you're not sure and are looking for offers.  The marketplace will price your item if you've offered it to a wide-enough audience.
3. The spreadsheet is average values.  Anything within a range of the prices indicated is around the market price.  There is no exact price for anything.  A buyer/seller in a hurry may go above or below the range indicated.  Someone who has a popular item or lots of time may not make discounts while selling.  If people tell you we're baloney, feel confident that the majority of our prices are from actual trades.  We use actual humans as well as an automated system that records trades.

Also, here's a free PC game we found today that is played through the OnLive service.

Finally, we hear on the street that there are going to be keys given away this weekend.  Hmmmm.

PSA: If It Sounds Too Good To Be True...

We've seen this kicking around and just to make sure people are not falling for this scam we want to point it out. Apparently there is a link that scammers are posting that promises to enable you to change the quality of items in your backpack.  Details are in a safe link here.  As with anything, if something sounds too good to be true it usually is.  Even if this were possible, once Valve found out, your account(s) would likely be banned and you would lose everything.  And seeing as this isn't possible and the scammers are just pointing to a phishing program, if you were crazy enough to install it you would likely lose all your items or some trojan would be installed.  Either way you lose.

Stay safe, don't download anything like this.  Duping is over and these schemes aren't even worth attempting.  If you want to make a profit at trading take the time to understand prices and earn it.

update: a few people have wrote to us and tried to equate duping with Valve replacing stolen items.  While the result of both are indiscernible to anyone outside of Valve, it is not the same.  Duping was the uncontrolled copying of hats via the old steam strading and in-game trading glitch. This is fixed.  The other issue is when a player has a stolen/hacked account and items are replaced by Valve, effectively creating doubles if the offender is never caught.  This has always existed and is a smaller scale issue.  It is controlled by Valve and is not "duping".  If this practice upsets you tell Valve about it.

B.M.O.C. and Ebeneezer pricing

Something is amiss in TF2 trading land.  Suddenly sellers prices for B.M.O.C. and Ebeneezer have jumped.  While the last price for B.M.O.C. of around 6 keys was semi-stable, all of the sudden people began asking buds for them.  Our contributors witnessed several trades for higher prices, of '10 keys', 'white painted Bills hat', and '2 Ebeneezers + key+ craft hat' and we based the bid or lower range of our prices on these trades.  However, just to be sure we will take the price down until this shakes out.  When the supply of these items is taken into account, a case can be made for a price higher than 6 keys.  However, a jump from this price to buds does not happen overnight.  Sites such as TF2TP and TF2outpost have many 'pie-in-the-sky' prices and we suggest you look around before buying such items.

update:  We all agreed that taking the price down for Ebeneezer & BMOC was the right thing to do.  This manipulation was organized and we will be all over these jumps in price from this time forward.  Our new policy is that if any item (excluding newly released) has a sudden move up or down in price for anything that looks suspicious (around 50% or more) we will do close to what the real stock market does: take a breather, follow the activity but keep the same price for as long as it takes to determine if the move is real or not.

Thanks to ConfusedCactus for alerting us.

(final) update to the update: Lots of comments flowing in, and while any discussion regarding the hats and the issue here is welcome, hearsay like "I sold my BMOC for XX!" is not useful and will get you nowhere.  In fact, from the comments coming in it is clear that there is a concerted effort to push the price of these items higher.  Price comes from what real people pay in real items.  We will not put up a price until we get clear evidence of what these two hats are worth, however long that takes and we are not in a rush.

A good site to visit: Skial.com

There are lots of servers and trade forums.  One we came upon that we found by pure accident was skial.com and their trade server.  They have a strong international following so a trader can get a more worldly view of pricing, not just the US where a lot of us reside.   Interestingly their trading server map uses our little spreadsheet (although an older version but we're working on getting them updated!) as its background!  Pretty cool, you should check it out.  In your TF2 server search window look for "skial".

Also, check out their trade forums here.  We like the rule "only complain about an item's price once per thread".  Genius!

We screwed the pooch! (and site update)

To err is human, so they say.  And to put it simply we are embarrassed to not have caught the Spine Chilling Skull 2010 error on price.  While his name will remain nameless, someone (Alex) mistakenly put the 2011's price in for the 2010 hat (which was around a Bills hat or 6-7 keys at the time).  That said, we will remove the price for this hat temporarily until the market decides what the hat is worth again.  These hats trade slowly so it may be a bit until we re-update that price.

Thanks to several people for catching this: "Sterling Peoples" who contacted us directly and a few on the forums, "Traveler74", and "corporate tax" and "KingOfMars27" on SPUF.  Our apologies for the confusion and kudos to the smart traders who caught it.  We changed the label for the older version to include the year 2010 to make sure this doesn't happen again!

That said, we can announce some progress on our site update.  We expect to have work completed by mid-January.  Some long-awaited improvements are on their way, including better searching as well as other improvements.  We'll keep the major details under wraps until then but as we said it will address many of the concerns that we have heard from you.

Store price vs. TF2 trading price

TF2 trader Shadow brings up a good point, store prices vs. TF2 trading prices:

Shadow said...
"Dude there's a mistake there infernal impaler (clean) should be 7-8 refined and the dirty one 4-6 just like the aspector they are the same price on the store."

Sometimes when an item first enters the marketplace it is close to its store price (or if its a promo from a game, its game price).  However, this is NOT always the case.  Moreover, two items from the same promo or the same price at the store can have completely different demand on them. 

Case in point as Shadow brings up the Infernal Impaler and the Apparitions Aspect.  For whatever reason people seem to place more DEMAND on the Aspect.  Therefore a higher price can be asked for it.  It's not complicated but a lot of traders have trouble with this and sometimes its hard to rationalize.

PSA: don't give me your uncraftables

Just a word of warning to all those traders out in TF2 land: mouse-over all items in your trade window.  Many trades in our experience have people putting up "uncraftable" (ie. dirty) items on unsuspecting victims.  It's very common and easy to stop.  You just have to pay attention.  That is all.  Carry on.

Risers and fallers

The stock market has daily risers and fallers. It's an actual metric that is used to gauge the overall up or down direction of the market.  In TF2, it's not exactly the same but there are certainly items that rise and fall.  Newer items tend to start out strong and fall with time.  However that isn't always the case, as we see currently with Essential Accessories which are a continually popular item and have risen in price recently.

Other items of note are the Salvaged Crate #30 items.  There is a real sense of scarcity to the more popular of these strange items (Machina, Kritzkrieg) that even carries over to the Gunslinger.  Mackerel and Caber have a little bump, but there are still plenty of sellers at their respectively lower prices.  Crate #30 continues to be kept in short supply.

Keys are slowly becoming more available this weekend.  Many traders who bought at 2 refined and 2 reclaimed will not be thrilled to know that the high prices they paid will likely soon bring the price back to equilibrium.  Keys are starting (slowly) to sell again for 2.44 and 2.33 refined...although this is not the official price yet as the influx of keys could be temporary.

Newer genuine items from the Saints Row promo are now tradeable and sell as a set (mostly) for around Bills Hat in price.  This is considered a lower price for a set of new genuines so the game must have sold well or was considered cheap by buyers.  Football Manager items have a strong price range around buds for the set.   Trine 2 and Assassin's Creed items are not yet tradeable.  The heavy hat for Trine 2 is a love/hate item apparently.  Assasin's Creed items look to be popular, although they are only for the spy which will be interesting to see if they trade for high value.

The Halloween items have quieted considerably as it would be expected.  The prices for them will likely fall (if not already) and we will adjust as we see how they sell.  They are not a typical item being they are usable only 3 days about per month and on Halloween events.  Buy them on the cheap only is our suggestion.  ("scrap -" means a scrap maximum per item).

Get your Level 7 Max Heads here (cheap!)

Hat duping?  Impossible you say!  Well, apparently not...link here.  Looks like the problem is already under control but just in case hold off on buying a Burning Tossel.

Genuine Purity Fist & Clean Spine-Chilling Skull 2011

Ok, traders there is some genuine controversy going around on a couple of items.  Let's address them one by one.

Genuine Purity Fist:  Apparently there are several (at least) hoarders of this item.  They have many of them in their respective backpacks.  Facepunch has the story here.  There were several SPUF threads however most have been deleted (not closed, per usual) by moderators.  Strange but conspiracy theorists we are not.  There remains a semi-informative SPUF thread here.  The bottom line: don't buy a genuine purity fist right now.  If you do, buy it on the cheap only.

Clean Spine-Chilling Skull 2011: As with Spine-Chilling Skull 2010, there is another "glitch" that made some of the 2011 versions craftable (note: the 2010 glitch made some of that year's version tradeable).  This is verified in the official wiki here.  The bottom line: this does appear to be a rarer item and a price-clarification is coming on both clean/dirty versions.  However, there appear to be many for sale right now at values all-over-the-map.  Until the market sorts out, we will watch and see.

PSA: Don't trust. Verify, verify, verify.

It has come to our attention here at TF2S that a well rehearsed scam going around whereby multiple scammers prey on an unsuspecting player to rip him/her off.  The game is called "Trust" ironically, and the scam involves a player claiming they are quitting TF2 and want to give away valuable items but only if they play the "Trust" game.  This involves other people in on the scam who supposedly also trust the "quitter" and give him items which the quitter then quickly trades back.  This goes around until the victim actually gives something valuable to the quitter and then the scammers all disappear.

Simon1123 on SPUF describes and documents the scam here.  Obviously with a game like TF2 where items translate to real money, use your best judgement.

Name your price or else...

Our latest poll brought up the subject of trading etiquette.  Many times traders will say they have something available and refuse to tell you what they want for it.  Sometimes it means they have no idea what its worth.  Sometimes they are playing a game where the person to name the price is either the fool because he/she offered too much OR more likely rejected/ignored because the offer isn't what the seller has in mind.  Our traders think "its annoying" more than "smart trading"... When someone is selling something and they tell you to "Offer" for it.

Annoying, they should just ask for what they want.	262 (54%)
Good trading, whoever says a price first is at a disadvantage.	179 (36%)
It doesn't matter to me	44 (9%)

Votes so far: 485
Poll closed

Trading patience is a virtue

Sometimes we get feedback regarding prices and how long it takes to unload an item.  Sometimes players claim that since it takes a long time to sell something then our prices must be wrong.  Wrong!  We are very capable of making mistakes.  However, in TF2 trading land there are a lot of choices and beyond the always hot Team Captains and Bills some items we don't want tend to sit a long time in our backpacks waiting for a home.

Take for example Genuine Volcano Fragment.  This was a hot property when Rift first came out and all the controversy about it being tradeable before the game's release.  Now, it takes a loooong time to sell one.  Does that mean it's value has gone down?  To some extent yes, but that's not the only answer.  It can take several days to a week to sell one at "full" price (currently between 2 and 3 refined).  The reason is simple: because there are more (genuine) items available spreading demand out.  So if you have one you need to spread the word out that it's for sale.  That means trading servers during peak times (Thurs-Sun), reddit tf2 forums, Steam TF2 trading forums, Source Op item trading forums, and tf2tp.com.  Start a new thread, keep it simple and post a link to your profile so people can easily add you.

When you've exhausted all avenues to sell an item then lower your price.

Trading with Steam: the birth of a movement?

As many of you are aware, the new Steam trading feature is out of beta and now officially live.  It allows you to trade TF2 items with other Steam games or other items within Steam games (for now Portal 2 and Spiral Knights).  Valve plans to add more games and inventories to this list and make this an ongoing feature for new games.  Steam trading FAQ here.

Seeing the success of TF2 customization and item trading, this is one of those moments where everything is new and the possibilities are limitless.  It could end with a fizzle as many seemingly great ideas do.  Or it could be one of those must-have pieces that developers incorporate into their upcoming games.  Some games will allow themselves to item trading such as role-playing games, while others like sports games may spawn their own new content as their trading currency.  Perhaps an NFL game will have throwback jerseys, or a Premier League (that's soccer to all you scratching your heads) team will have fan chants...the possibilities are limitless.

Continued price flattening in the TF2 economy

If you could visualize the prices of all the TF2 items out in the marketplace (and there's a LOT) as the horizon, you would see a panoramic of hills and valleys and some very tall peaks.  With the height of the hill or mountain representing the value of the item.  The highest peaks would represent items like Max/Buds/Bills (we're not considering unusuals here because of their subjective values).

Over the past six months the average height (value) of all those peaks has flattened towards 1 ref.  No matter how "hot" the hat was, it's hill is shrinking.  That's pretty simple to visualize and understand in economic terms.  That is, with such a broad number of items, and with most widely available (except Genuine Maul maybe) their price always goes towards the lowest common denominator - the craft hat.  Without the influx of thousands of F2P players, and some converting to paid players, the price flattening would have been even more severe.

Max/Buds/Bills on the other hand are all seeing a resurgence.  Their peaks in our mountain example look even slightly taller and thinner now.  Their actual values in $ terms has only come down modestly.  Now they appear to be heading back up.  With black market keys/refined metals (thanks sourceop) creating the market's REAL dollar values - at $2 a key and every seller asking for 5+ keys - a Bill's hat is a good investment again.

TF2 Google Spreadsheet has moved!

Yes.  The spreadsheet has a new home.  While editing the latest item count percentages which replaced the item counts, I realized that there is never enough room for commentary on the items or what is happening in the TF2 marketplace.  This will allow the spreadsheet to remain the most important item but also to make commentary on the TF2 marketplace possible.  It will also allow more information on statistics to see where people are coming from to see the spreadsheet.