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.

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.

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.