Santa hat

The Santa hat is a tradeable discontinued item. Santa hats appeared randomly on the ground all over RuneScape on 25 December 2002, in batches about every six minutes. During this time, players could pick up as many as they wanted.

Although Jagex described the hats as "just a bit of fun" at the time, they have since become an expensive and much-coveted item amongst players.

All players can wear a Santa hat. They do not provide any bonuses in the main game, but they do give a +3 Magic bonus in RuneScape Classic.

Market history
When Santa hats were first released, players valued the Santa hat at around 50,000 coins.

Santa hats were selling for around 250,000 - 300,000 in December 2004. During the course of the next year, they climbed to 4 million coins. Following the trends of other rares in 2007, they rose to 24 million. However, following the Duel Arena, Wilderness, and trading changes in November and December 2007 and January 2008, the price fell as low as 11.2 million coins.

Between March 2009 and January 2010, the price of Santa hats reached 34 million coins.

In February 2010, the price increased even more, going from 34 million to 65 million coins by the end of the month. After that, they crashed to 51 million coins, then stabilized at around 55 million coins for the rest of March and early April.

On 24 May 2010, the Santa hat hit the 100 million mark. Many players theorized about this rise in Santa hat prices from 30 million to 100 million coins. Possible factors include the buyout of masks at the Grand Exchange, and/or price manipulation by clans that hoard the rare items.

When the Santa hat reached a record price of 120 million coins on 2 June 2010, investors began to sell their Santa hats, resulting in falling prices. On 12 August 2010, the Santa hat reached a low of 72 million coins. The price later rose, reaching approximately 108 million coins in late November.

On 27 December 2010, the price of the Santa Hat began to crash again. It dropped from over a 100 million coins to its lowest price since early 2010: 52.6 million coins.

Since the release of the old Free Trade system, the price of the Santa Hat has risen significantly to over 100 million coins. As of 19th July 2011 the santa hat has started to stablise its price at around 130 million coins with slight rises, however due to the price of partyhats and all the other rare items santa hats are relatively cheap and are one of the most sought after rares.

Trivia

 * As an old practical joke, players would leave a ball of wool or ashes and a red bead or fez 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 looked very similar to a dropped Santa hat.
 * Trololo is a famous video on youtube sang buy a russian man named Edward in the 1960s. If I got any of this wrong, TROLOLO
 * Salty Claws wears a Santa hat during the 2010 Christmas Event, though the one he wears is much smaller on your head. During the time of this event, the hood of the Dungeoneering cape displayed next to Thok was replaced with a Santa hat.
 * The Santa hat is one of the most sought after rares. Due to recent polls over the past several years, many people find santas to be the second best looking rare not too far behind the White partyhat.
 * In RuneScape Classic, the Santa hat gave +3 magic bonus. However in todays RuneScape this bonus no longer exists and the Santa hat is just for fashion purposes.