Santa hat



A Santa hat is an item that was the last tradable 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. The Santa Hat is also known as the most popular Holiday Event item.

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.

Value
Players were buying and selling Santa hats for approximately 30,000 coins on the day they were dropped. Like other tradable 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. Initally it was thought that this was a result of the introduction of item lending, other expensive and lendable items (such as party hats) did not see a similar pattern, and therefore this cause has since been discounted.

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. Since then, the price has begun to plummet again. However, the price has once again begun to climb as it gets closer to Christmas and the Santa Suit release. In early November, Santa hats have risen once again from 14 million to 20, seeing jumps as large as 750k or more within a few days.