Christmas cracker


 * "Cracker" redirects here. For the cracker gained to celebrate the Golden Joystick Jagex won, see Golden 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 second-most expensive item in RuneScape, the first being the Blue partyhat.

Pulling
Held within the cracker is a Partyhat and one other item or a stack of items, such as some coins, runes, or runite 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 to open it WILL result in a net loss of millions of coins as the cracker is of a much higher value than any of the Party hats you will get from it, except if you get a blue partyhat, which is worth more then the value of the cracker.

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.

The Christmas cracker is currently the rarest tradeable item in Runescape.

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. Furthermore, the maximum and minimum prices are 1% from the median as opposed to the 5% used for every other item in RuneScape except party hats.

Trivia

 * Contrary to some popular belief, a Black Partyhat is unobtainable from a Christmas cracker and nonexistent.
 * A glitch in Runescape classic allowed players to duplicate Christmas crackers using the third party software AutoRune.
 * Christmas crackers are currently the second most expensive item in the game in terms of Grand Exchange price surpassed by the blue party hat as of feb 2, 2011. They are also the most expensive item in terms of unofficial "street price".

Christmas cracker