The answer is what's called a price check. That's when someone asks you how much their Ghastly Gibus is worth, and you have the sad fortune of informing them they won't be able to sell it for a Burning Flames Kabuto.
Well, fine sirs (and ladies), I am here to help you gain confidence in your own value estimation. With some practice, you can happily know the value of your items, and I can happily get back to calling down more fire and brimstone.
In my last post I talked about how supply and demand determines values in TF2 trading. But how do you figure out exactly how much you should trade your item for?
There are a number of sites to give you info, but I find it's best to get a ballpark with simple reasoning, then use those sites to help you nail down your estimate. I will list them here as I go.
Ghastly(ier) Gibus
What we probably know off the top of our head:
- Supply
- Seems like everyone has it
- Easy achievement item in TF2
- Doesn't cost anything to get
- Demand
- Haven't ever heard anyone say they wish they had it
- A lot of people will trade ~1 refined to for a random hat to craft with another hat with the hope of getting something better, but this can't even be crafted
What we could find out with a little work:
- TF2Stats.net hat lists -- this is a great resource for seeing commonality of hats -- in this cast, 91% of people own a Gibus of some kind
- TF2Items.com trading site stats -- this is a cool place to see the trending top few hats being bought/sold -- in this case, the gibus is the 4th most common hat people want to sell (i.e. don't want)
- TF2TP.com wishlist search -- this is THE most useful place to find what people are trading items for, and how much people are offering for items -- in this case, there's a number of people trying to sell the gibus for 1 reclaimed, and not many buyers
Okay, that was easy. Let's pick a hard one.
Unusual Killer's Kabuto with Burning Flames
What we probably know off the top of our head:
- Supply
- It's very rare to see someone with an unusual
- Unusuals only come from crates
- There's a 1% chance of getting an unusual in a crate
- Keys cost $2.50 if I buy them from the store, so unboxing a random unusual would cost $250 on average
- Not that many people open a lot of crates
- Demand
- Everyone I know wishes they had an unusual
- The Soldier one of the most popular classes
- The Kabuto is one of the most popular Soldier Hats
- Burning Flames is one of the most popular effects
Estimation based on above info: $500
What we could find out with a little work:
- UHatSearch.appspot.com unusual list -- this site isn't exact, but it's pretty nifty for getting a general idea of unusual rarities -- in this case, there are about 15,000 unusual hats, of which 130 are Killer's Kabutos
- TF2Items.com unusual search -- this site is much more accurate when looking to see just how many unusuals with a particular effect there are -- in this case, there are only about 8 burning flames Killer's Kabutos
- SourceOP.com TF2 subforms and UnusualTradingCommunity.com -- running searches here are THE most useful places to find what people are trading high-value items for -- in this case, the last burning kabuto sold for around $800 (link for proof)
Final approximated price: $700-900.
The processes I used here to price check these two items are very similar to what I use to price check items when people ask me, or when I need to know for my own trading. From experience, I can know how certain items usually trend, how easy items are to sell for certain prices, etc, but there's no secret sauce. If you follow the above guidelines and use these resources, you'll soon be totally confident in your values.
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