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Do you have treasure in your Team Fortress 2 backpack?

Do you have treasure in your Team Fortress 2 backpack?

Hat of Undeniable Wealth And RespectIf you have played Team Fortress 2 recently you are probably aware that there are a wide variety of weapons, hats and other miscellaneous items for your class to use in-game. Unless you obsessively keep up with TF2 and its trading community like I do, what you may not be aware of is that some of those items are worth good chunks of change—as in real cash money. The Mann-Conomy, TF2’s in-game economy, was introduced a little over a year ago and it didn’t take long for the TF2 community to turn the in-game economy into a game itself. Some items have settled in as currency for buying or trading items. Others, due to their rarity, are worth amounts that may make some of you uncomfortable, being that they are merely a set of pixels. Let’s take a look at how some items have become worth more than the original price tag of the game and others multiple times that.

The Mann-Conomy

In early September 2010, players started receiving Mann-Co. Supply Crates in their random drops that normally only contained weapons or, on rare occasions, a hat. What are these? What do we do with them? The crate’s in-game description showed what was in the crates; a myriad of weapons, hats, customization tools or an “Exceedingly Rare Special Item!” What is that? How do we get one? On September 30th, 2010 Valve released The Mann-Conomy Update and answered all those questions. Included with the update was an in-game store called The Mann-Co.Store. The Mann-Co. Store sold many weapons and hats along with keys to open the crates. For $2.49 you could purchase a Mann-Co. Supply Crate Key and use it to open a single crate from your inventory. Let’s come back to that in a little bit.

Demoman wearing Bill's Hat

"I'm drunk- you don't have an excuse!"

A couple of seemingly innocent events that occurred before the Mann-Conomy even existed introduced items that would become the foundation of the Mann-Conomy. Almost a year before you could trade with other players, on November 2nd, 2009, Valve announced in a blog post that any Steam user that preordered Left 4 Dead 2 would receive Bill’s Hat in TF2. This U.S. Army’s 1st Special Forces Beret was worn by the character Bill in the first Left 4 Dead. People who wanted to buy Left 4 Dead 2 received 10% off the preorder and got a cool hat that can be worn by any class in TF2. That was it—at the time. About eight months later on June 10th, 2010, along with the release of TF2 for Mac OS, Valve announced in a blog post that anyone that logged into their TF2 account from a Mac between then and August 16th would receive a pair of in-game Ear Buds. Again, just a little fun miscellaneous item for any class to sport while shooting their friends.

Bill’s and Buds, as they have come to be known, were never to be given to TF2 players again. This makes them perfect in-game currency. Their limited availability set the supply. The fact that they actually looked good in the game caused players who missed out on those two events to want to trade for them. There was the demand. Simple economics (Mann-Conomics?) tells us that limited supply and high demand makes valuable items. Once trading started, the value of a Bill’s settled at around $10. A Buds was commonly traded for two Bills’, a real world value of about $20. Keys started to be traded for and then sold. They sell for less than Mann-Co. price on the aftermarket—averaging about $2.00 each.

The prices on all of these items fluctuate with each other on a regular basis, so values on high-end items are often expressed in Buds, a Bill’s Hat being half of a Buds. Currently an Ear Buds is worth around $28. In turn Bill’s are worth about $14. Now that you have a general idea of worth in-game, let’s get down to the good stuff.

And now, the good stuff

Gentle Mannes's Service Medal

Wear it with pride

The date was August 13th, 2009. The update was The Classless Update. A hidden page emerged and was passed around to and from excited players in Steam chat and on forums. The first 11,111 people to log on and click the button on that page received an in-game item for the Soldier. The Gentle Manne’s Service Medal. Each medal was eventually numbered from one to 11,111—making them each unique. Each is worth at least one Buds, going up as the numbers get below #3000. A number under #1000 is easily worth four Buds.

There have been two instances in Team Fortress 2 history that Valve has assigned a Vintage quality to groups of items. The first time being when the Mann-Conomy was introduced—none of the affected items in this switch are rare enough to be worth more than a few dollars. The second Vintage switch was after the release of the game Total War: SHOGUN 2. The Shogun Pack was added to the game on March 10th, 2011, consisting of nine items given to TF2 players who preordered the game. These items also became craftable at that time. Just five days later, as part of an update, all of the Shogun Pack weapons that had been crafted were given Vintage quality. Two of these items were The Fan-O-War melee weapon for the Scout and The Concheror for the Soldier. The short crafting window coupled with the fact that these two particular weapons were not well received meant almost nobody crafted them. Only about 300 of each of them was made Vintage. The demand for these comes from vintage collectors. The Vintage Fan-O-War and The Vintage Choncheror are the keys to a full vintage collection. Their worth has only gone up, currently fetching two Buds each.

Scout wearing Max's Severed Head

I bet my life on a race once. This little guy lost.

In April of 2010, Telltale games released Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse on Steam. To promote the game after launch, any players who purchased it in the first week of release received three TF2 in-game items; Max’s Severed Head, The Lugermorph and The Big Kill. Even though Max’s Severed Head is thought to be ugly by a lot of the TF2 community, being one of the rarer, if not rarest hats when trading was introduced drove its values pretty high. A Max Head was traded for four Buds for a long time. Just recently it has started trading for three and a half Buds (3 Buds, 1 Bill’s). When The Lugermorph was later re-released in connection with Poker Night at the Inventory all original Lugermorphs were given Vintage quality. The Big Kill and The Vintage Lugermorph have continually held their value at one Buds and one Bill’s respectively.

Most items take little effort to acquire; preorder a game, log in to Steam, combine virtual pixels. Not so for The Hat of Undeniable Wealth And Respect. It is not just a clever name, either—to receive a HOUWAR a player had to complete all 28 objectives in The Great Steam Treasure Hunt in December of 2010. This was no easy task, as the hunt spanned two weeks and over 20 games. The hat has been updated over time to include movements and particle effects—making it even more desirable. The HOUWAR commonly sells for between $360-$400, often traded for the equivalent value of Buds. (Editor’s note: Holy shit!)

Remember the “Exceedingly Rare Special Item!“ I told you about earlier? Some very intuitive players setup servers that recorded what was coming out of the crates and figured out that in any given crate you have a 1% chance of uncrating an Unusual Hat. An Unusual Hat, commonly refereed to as simply an Unusual, is a random hat that is given a random particle effect. The effects range from different colored confetti showering off the hat to sun beams shining brightly from it. Receiving an Unusual from a crate is very rare, so there is not a steady supply of any given hat or effect. Some people have documented spans of crate opening (some hundreds at a time) and never received an Unusual. Some hat/effect combos are very well liked and therefore there is a high demand for them. Here we are with supply and demand again—this time with the fact that someone can spend $200+ on keys and still not uncrate an Unusual, causing the real world price for Unusuals to skyrocket. It is never easy to put a price on an Unusual. A high demand hat, such as The Team Captain, with a high demand effect, such as Sunbeams, can and has sold for upwards of $1000 (That is indeed four digits just in case you might think that is a typo). A lower demand hat with a not-so-popular effect can possibly be worth as low as $40. There are a lot of them in-between that get bought and sold for hundreds of dollars every day.

A meta-game about a game

I hope you enjoyed learning about TF2’s rarer and more valuable items along with a bit of their history. If you haven’t opened your backpack yet, pop it open and take a peek. If your Steam profile is public, you can view your backpack with sites like TF2Items.com and TF2b.com. If your Steam profile is private, then you will need to launch Team Fortress 2 to have a look. While you’re at it, come play Team Fortress 2 with an awesome community. Happy treasure hunting.

Comments

  1. Canti
    Canti
    BobbyDigi wrote:
    A high demand hat, such as The Team Captain, with a high demand effect, such as Sunbeams, can and has sold for upwards of $1000.

    s6up81.png

    I knew this had turned into trading real money but wow.
  2. QCH
    QCH Hmmmm... Wonder what I have lurking in my bag.
  3. Snarkasm
    Snarkasm I have an unopened crate. Hmmmmmmm.
  4. shwaip
    shwaip You can also get an estimate of your backpack's value here:

    http://tf2wh.teamfortress.org/

    (it's incorrect for unusuals).

    snark, i wouldn't open that crate. That one came out before you could get "strange" items from crates. This means the non-hat non-usual non-paint items are actually worth something.
  5. cola
    cola Eh, I have one unusual and it's the only one I'll ever need.
  6. CrazyJoe
    CrazyJoe API Error on the steam backpack value estimator page... I have no idea what the stuff I have is worth...
  7. shwaip
    shwaip it's getting hit pretty hard - try a few more times.
  8. BobbyDigi
    BobbyDigi
    shwaip wrote:
    That one came out before you could get "strange" items from crates. This means the non-hat non-usual non-paint items are actually worth something.

    I would phrase that differently. In the newer crates you have a better chance of getting a Strange weapon that is worth more then a scrap. As more and more of the current series crates get opened, there is more and more supply of the particular strange weapons. Most of the strange weapons can easily be acquired for a Reclaimed Metal (The equivalent of six weapons), some as low as a scrap (Two weapons).

    Most of the time you are better off trading a key for 2-2.33 Refined Metal and then trade metal for the strange you want.

    -Digi
  9. CrazyJoe
    CrazyJoe Ok it didn't give me an error, but it says this backpack is private.
  10. shwaip
    shwaip
    BobbyDigi wrote:
    I would phrase that differently. In the newer crates you have a better chance of getting a Strange weapon that is worth more then a scrap. As more and more of the current series crates get opened, there is more and more supply of the particular strange weapons. Most of the strange weapons can easily be acquired for a Reclaimed Metal (The equivalent of six weapons), some as low as a scrap (Two weapons).

    Most of the time you are better off trading a key for 2-2.33 Refined Metal and then trade metal for the strange you want.

    -Digi

    Well his crate is series 7 - which was before they had stranges in them. There is literally zero chance of getting a strange...and there's no way the non-strange items will be worth more than 1/2 a scrap.
  11. Cliff_Forster
    Cliff_Forster This thread is making my brain hurt....
  12. fatcat
    fatcat Who do I sell my TF2 backpack junk to for $?
  13. Cliff_Forster
    Cliff_Forster I actually traded Bill's hat just because some kid really wanted it and asked nicely.
  14. BobbyDigi
    BobbyDigi
    fatcat wrote:
    Who do I sell my TF2 backpack junk to for $?

    There is no easy way to answer this. I could advise you on some sites where items are traded for cash and would forewarn that sales are not always instant, it will take a little work and the possibility is always there to get scammed when you are dealing with real world money.

    -Digi
  15. DogSoldier
    DogSoldier Evidently, my backpack is worth 46.80 US$!

    BTW, if you look at the Todays Top 10 you'll see a player named .n00bz.cdxliv Skyriming.. We just call him CD, he's in my TF2 clan.
  16. rjt197197 Fun fact: the highest amount an unusual has ever been bought for was a Burning Flames Team Captain, which sold for $2000 (not in promos, real cash). There is currently someone on SourceOp offering "97 buds + max + burning armored authority." This totals to ~ $2700 - $3200.
  17. dumptuck Ahhh... Back when I was new to TF2... I found a crate, traded for a key, opened it up and guess what? It was an unusual backwards baseball cap! Being a noob, I sold it for only two reclaimed metal. I feel so sad now...
  18. fight for the future ^ I feel your pain - but not really. I only traded some 3 ref stuff for recs, before I clued in. 1% chance of getting an unusual is sooooo low. You could easily open hundreds and not get one.
  19. fight for the future oh meant to give kudos to the author for writing this, good info to understand.

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