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.

Server vs. Forum pricing

One thing I'd like to comment on today is the occasional discrepancy between the prices for items on trade servers and the pricing on forums.  Often the in-game price for items will be further away from the market price in both directions than forums.   Why is this?  It's very simple really: on a trade server the motivation is to move items more in the moment and to a smaller audience.  Everyone streams to trade servers once new items are released and promos are unlocked.  This is the place to get high variance from market pricing.  Traders with 'hot' items will unload them to the impulse buyer.  Traders with 'not so hot' items will look to just sell them to craft or upgrade their items.

Posting to a forum works as a wait and see situation potentially to a larger audience.  There are many thousands of users who look at forums while away from their gaming pc/mac.  They aren't buying or selling on impulse most of the time and pricing will be closer to market.  New items can be pricy on forums but similarly to trading on a server there is a short window of time for this.

Carry on.

The dirty discount

A lot has come from the bug recently where hats that were store bought (not usable in crafting) were then sold to unsuspecting buyers at "craftable hat" prices.  The bug is now fixed but essentially didn't show that a hat wasn't usable in crafting while trading in-game.  Don't be ashamed - it even fooled those of us who are supposed to know better (ahem, Jason).  These hats are considered "dirty", which has become a blanket term for anything marking a hat.  A "clean" hat is tradeable, usable in crafting and often also means there is no craft #.  Remember that an item with a craft # higher than 100 can only be seen in a backpack viewer.  A "dirty" hat is either untradeable (without giftwrap), or has gifted by text, or now is also not usable in crafting.  Hats that have craft #'s are also considered dirty by many, but when trading generic items with normal values it is often not mentioned.  It mostly has an effect on prices of higher-value items such as Team Captain or Cremator's Conscience.

There is a dirty discount associated with these hats.  Typically a reclaimed metal off the craft hat price.  Many of these hats now sell for around 2 reclaimed metals, which is about the right price in our minds as well.  The hat looks the same but you just can't craft with it.