Santa hat

The Santa hat is a tradeable discontinued item. Santa hats appeared randomly on the ground all over RuneScape on December 25, 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 additional bonuses in the main game, although they do give a +3 Magic bonus in RuneScape Classic.

Market History
When first released, players valued the Santa hat at around 5,000 coins. Like other tradeable holiday drops, their value has since climbed into the millions.

Santa hats were selling for around 100,000 - 200,000 in December 2004. By 2005, they were worth in between 1 and 2 million coins, and shortly after that, they climbed to 4 million. Following the trends of other rares in 2007, they rose to 24 million. Then, 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.

Since March 2009, the price of Santa hats has risen greatly, although not continuously. By January 2010, the price of Santa hats reached 34 million coins.

In February 2010, the price raised once 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 first week of April 2010.

On 24 May 2010, the Santa hat hit the 100 million mark.

Many have theorized about the 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 had begun to sell their Santa hats, resulting in falling prices. Runescape bloggers, investors, and speculators currently believe that Santa Hats are overvalued due to their recent run on prices, over-supply in the Grand Exchange, and low demand. 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. It dropped from over a 100 million coins to its lowest price since 180 days 52.6m million coins.

The Price of Santa Hats continued to crash in anticipation of the return of free trade and the wilderness, and on Jan 27th, 2011, the Santa reached a 180 day low of 52M. However, When free trade was released on Feb. 1st, 2011, the Santa had risen to 58M, and continued to rise by about 3M a day. As of Feb. 23rd 2011, the price appears to have stabilized somewhat at 75-80M.

As of March. 27th 2011 the price has been steeply rising due to a recent hacking of accounts, causing Jagex to remove around 1000 Santa Hats.

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.
 * 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.
 * After the god wars expansion update, the Santa hat seen in the chat head glitched, making it seem taller.