Christmas cracker

A Christmas cracker is a holiday item that was dropped during the 2001 Christmas event on 25 December 2001, the first RuneScape Christmas event, and is arguably the rarest, and is currently the sixth most expensive item in RuneScape.

All of the partyhats except for the Purple partyhat and the Yellow partyhat have passed the Christmas cracker in price, most likely because players cannot buy them on the Grand Exchange for Max cash(2.147b). But the Christmas cracker has a far higher "street value" than any of the partyhats because of its rarity, and the vast majority of trades take place "on the street".

Pulling
Held within the cracker is a Partyhat and one other items or a stack of items, such as some coins, runes, or rune armour. To open it, it must be used with another player. Upon opening, the player who had the cracker gets a random coloured party hat, and the other player gets the other item. It used to be random which player would get the partyhat, however Mod Ash has confirmed that this was changed to the player with the cracker always gets the hat to prevent a possible method of real world trading.

When these crackers were dropped, the original colour was red, and has since changed to white.

Pulling the cracker used to result in the loss of millions of coins, as the cracker is worth more than any partyhat. The immense value of crackers and party hats on the street has posed a problem; the maximum gold stack is 2.147b, and some crackers sell for even higher than 6b, meaning items like H'ween masks, Santa Hats, and other Partyhats must be traded to offset the gold limit. Often times crackers are traded via shards and cash as well in members. Thus, it is extremely difficult to obtain both the money and the items to purchase a cracker; very, very few players have the wealth. Partyhats fluctuate periodically to be higher than crackers, meaning players can for once pull their cracker and receive a more valuable item.

An update now causes the player using the cracker on another player to receive a warning message, asking them if they are sure they wish to do so.

Rarity
Few Christmas crackers remain due to the fact that many were pulled immediately after the drop. The vast majority of players opened them for the rune items that could be obtained from doing so. Note that at the time of the drop, party hats were virtually worthless, while certain rune items such as the rune kiteshield were worth millions. It wasn't expected that Christmas crackers would one day be worth so much.

Over time, many Christmas crackers have been lost as players with older accounts have quit, have been permanently banned or have opened their Christmas crackers for fun. Their importance to the RuneScape economy (which was so crucial for years starting a few years after their release) has long diminished. Other discontinued items such as party hats, Halloween masks, and Santa hats are far more commonly traded.

Because their numbers are so low, and are traded only a few times per year, many expect the Christmas Cracker to become the first extinct RuneScape item. When the last player either drops, pulls, or is banned with their cracker, the item will cease to be traded on the Grand Exchange or off the street. If Jagex were to conduct an "account cleanup" of dormant, unused accounts, this would officially pit the Christmas cracker as extinct.

The recent rise in party hat prices has sparked fears that more Christmas Crackers will be lost. Players can now pull their cracker and receive a much more valuable item, with the exception of the Purple Partyhat. Thus, players can buy a cracker, pull it, sell the party hat, and buy another one. This is of course assuming that they are traded on the Exchange, which they generally are not. The street price of the Christmas Cracker goes as far up as 10b. Most party hats, in contrast, sell for 1-1.5b. And because of the increasing problem of crackers being lost, many players are saving their crackers.

Price Update History
Christmas crackers hardly ever update in price in the Grand Exchange. Since the release of the Grand Exchange, the price has only updated seven times suggesting that it is rarely sold via the Grand Exchange.

Since the free trade updates on 1 February 2011, the item has suddenly risen by 700 million coins. Jagex has stated that this was due to a miscalculation in prices for items that do not get traded in Grand Exchange often. The miscalculation was fixed two days later and the prices of most items affected were manually lowered by Jagex.

Trivia

 * A glitch in Runescape (which is known as Runescape Classic now) allowed players to create Christmas crackers (or any other tradeable item, in fact) using third party software.
 * Players don't have to withdraw the Christmas cracker in noted form, as they have to pull it on another person. Although, as with all consumable rares, players are STRONGLY advised to keep Christmas Crackers in noted form to prevent the unlikely accident of pulling them.

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