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 item on Runescape. It is also has the highest street price of any item in the game (Currently around 7 billion coins, making it the most expensive item on the Runescape.)

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 was worth more than any partyhat by over 300m. Currently however, since the re-release of free trade, partyhats have risen to the point where they are roughly equivalent to the cost 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.

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 200 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 duplicate Christmas crackers using the third party software AutoRune.
 * Christmas crackers are currently the fifth most expensive item in the game in terms of Grand Exchange price, beaten by the Blue, Red, White, and Green Partyhats. They are also the most expensive item in terms of unofficial "street price".
 * 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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