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.

Red fezzes are often mistaken for Santa hats, although changes to the trading system made scamming other players because of this similarity impossible.

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

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

Prior to the real world trading updates in late 2007 and early 2008, Santa hats were valued at about 20 to 24 million coins. After the updates, they plummeted down to about 11.2 million coins at one point, although they have since recovered somewhat.

Around the 14 July 2008, the price of Santa hats started rising at an exponential rate. Initially it was thought that this was a result of the introduction of item lending, but other expensive and lendable items (such as party hats) did not see a similar pattern. Therefore this theory as a potential cause has been disregarded.

It seems much more likely that the cause was the Christmas 2008 guaranteed content poll, which started on the 7 July. The winner of the "reward" category was the Santa suit, and the Santa hat would make the perfect accessory for it. The price of Santa hats peaked at around 19.1 million on the 27 July due to speculation. After that, the price began to plummet again.

The price once again began to climb as Christmas approached. In early November, the price rose from 14 million to a peak of 19.8 million on 8 November, seeing jumps as large as 750,000 or more within a few days. The price then plummeted again, dipping to 17.0 million on the 12 November, but stabilised around 17.8 million towards the end of the month. It rose again after the Santa suit was released on 16 December. After the event was released many players were offering over 25 million + coins for them. However, after Christmas it crashed again, later stabilising at around 14-15 million and then plummeting down to almost 11 million. It has since begun to climb, and is currently around.

Santa hats rose to just under 16 million gold and have since then been dropping almost as rapid as they went up. This glitch has since been fixed several weeks after its initial discovery was made.

Trivia

 * On Easter of 2009, a new PvP glitch was found that players could generate millions of gold in a very quick manner by using a beast of burden while in non-member PvP. The day after, Andrew Gower made a post on the RuneScape Official Forums stating that players abusing the glitch would be banned. It is believed that these players are attempting to buy out rare items such as Santa hats before they are banned causing many Santa hats to be removed from the game
 * The Santa Hat used to give +3 Magic attack in RuneScape Classic.
 * It is the last holiday drop to be made tradeable.
 * Unlike most holiday items which the events last for at least a week, the Santa Hat drop only lasted for one day on December 25th, 2002.