Santa hat



A Santa hat is an item of clothing that was the last tradeable holiday drop, as part of the 2002 Christmas event. They were dropped only on 25 December 2002. All day they appeared randomly on the ground all over RuneScape, in batches about every six minutes. A player could pick up as many as they wanted.

Although Jagex at the time described them as "just a bit of fun", they have since become an expensive and much-coveted item amongst players. Even if a player does not own a Santa hat, they can borrow one from a player who does via the Item Lending feature.

All players can wear a Santa hat on their head. They give no statistic bonuses on the main game, although they give +3 Magic on RuneScape Classic.

Santa Hats are also commonly worn with a Santa suit which was released on 16 December 2008 during the 2008 Christmas event.



Market History
Players were buying and selling Santa hats for only about 30,000 coins on the day they were dropped. Like other tradeable holiday drops, their value has since climbed into millions.

Santa hats were selling for around 500k in December 2003. Since then, the price had risen to about 20 million to 24 million by 2007 (although this increase was not continuous). Then, following the duel arena, wilderness, and trading changes in November and December 2007 and January 2008, the price plummeted down to as low as 11.2 million coins.

During 2008, in general, the price rose to about 15 million by the summer and 18 million by December. There was some speculation due to the known release of the Santa suit (which did not include a hat) in December 2008, but it is unclear how much this actually affected the price. A few days before Christmas 2008 the price of Santas crashed. It reached a low of 12-13 million in February and March 2009.

Since March 2009, the price of Santas has risen greatly, although not continuously. Most of the increases have been large rises in short time periods, each one followed by a crash, a period of instability, and a stabilization at a higher price. By January 2010, the price of Santas was about 34 million coins.

In February 2010, a major rise in the price of Santas began, rising from 34 million to 65 million by the end of the month. After that, they crashed to 51 million, then stabilized at around 55 million for the rest of March and first week of April 2010. During the second week of April and onwards, Santas have been increasing in price and by the end of April, reached to the price of 65 million once again, and continued to rise. In 24 May 2010, the Santa hat has hit the 100 million mark.

Many have theorized about the causes of this fairly sudden rise from a little over 30 million to over 100 million. Possible theories include the buyout of masks at the Grand Exchange, which left Santas as the only discontinued item that was easily tradeable, the mint cake crash and its effects in the economy, or price manipulation clans hoarding the hats, but the exact cause is still unclear. However many people blame RuneScape players with a large amount of wealth who buy out huge numbers of rare items and drop them or take it out of the game because they believe rare's ruin the game.

When Santa hat reached the price of 120m, many people suddenly decided to sell their santa hats due to the fact that their price were higher than Red masks and Green masks and that santa hat price has been very unstable. It suffered a loss of 3.7m then another 3.7m and a massive 4.3m loss. followed by a 4m loss. A lot of people believe this is "The Summer Crash of Rares" but others think that this is just a minor crash due to panic sellers and manipulators. On the 11th of June, Santa has started to show a rebound where there were more buyers than sellers creating a demand for Santa hats.

Trivia

 * As an old practical joke, players would leave a ball of wool or ashes and red bead on the ground waiting for other players to come across and pick it up. When together, the ball of wool or ashes and red bead look very similar to a dropped Santa hat.