Item Retirement

[TheCarpe]

I wish dropped hats gave a date. My Pickelhaub was dropped within about an hour of my logging on the first day of the spy/sniper update.

It knew where it truly belonged.

That said, the last thing we need is another variable to make traders demand more for their crap. "My hat is in the first 5000 crafts, that makes it worth an extra key." Ugh, pretty much why I never do any trading outside the Warehouse anymore.

Of the hats on the way out, I have the Trophy Belt and Pickelhaube. Pretty sure each of them have passed through my backpack over my TF2 career but only those two are left. One is Vintage.

[Plinko]

I have my beanie, stash and pink as hell trophy belt, so I'm good.

[Katotsu]

All of you are saying you've had/have all of these that you want. I have never owned one of them.

[Cat Square]

welp, there goes my dream of having a pickelhaube in every color.

not that I wear the pickelhaubs I have... but still...

[Flash]

Bah on Valve! Of course three of these I don't have yet, I've really been slacking in my hat collecting lately.

[Boss Llama]

Are you going for Vintages, or just normals, Flash? They can still be acquired at the moment.

[Flash]

Are you going for Vintages, or just normals, Flash? They can still be acquired at the moment.

Vintage of course! I've got trades out for the Batter's Helmet, Fro and Fedora but prices have already jumped way up. I guess if nothing else I can just use cash to get them from the marketplace later.

[majine3765]

I noticed outpost has been flooded with these items going into retirement. If anyone is a trader the old adage of buy low sell high might be possible shortly.
To bad the heavy hat isn't worth having.

[Boss Llama]

The prices went high the instant the retirement plans were announced. The price range on a set of the 9 clean non-vintage retired hats has jumped from a bit under 4 keys to anywhere between 12 and 19 keys. A vintage set is now running anywhere from 28 keys to 41 keys, up from maybe 9 before. Combining this frenzy with the massive inflation in key price caused by the community market (which doubled the cash price of a key), the values have increased from 6-10 times already.

[Plinko]

I would say the change in key prices is not inflation per se, but a massive reduction in transaction costs resulting in the elimination of an arbitrage opportunity.

[Boss Llama]

All I know is keys went from $1.20 to $2.40 overnight, and nothing else changed prices, despite being valued in keys

[Plinko]

I would suggest that the market depression caused by excessively high transaction costs applies equally to all tradeable items, so items you valued in keys have a matching increase in cash price. This was a perfectly predictable event (the addition of the marketplace increasing cash prices), the only question was how much they would rise - if they would float all the way to the ceiling (the Mann Co. store price, after adjusting for fees). So far, it seems they're pretty close.

Over the long haul, they may close that gap or settle slightly lower - keys are still less valuable than $2.49 in cash - but we'll see where it goes.