Time to re-value the Bills hat.

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CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 10:57am

Time to re-value the Bills hat.

I have been saying in several other places that the Key is not, by deffinition, currency. As currency can only have one function and that is to be a medium of exchange. The key's purpose is for openning crates.

Now that I have said that than I can establish the fact that the key's increased value should be recognized as an increase indepedant of all other items in the game. What do I mean by this? If the key increases independantly than other items than it should hold true for all items in tf2. For example:

http://backpack.tf/vote/311/3/0

This link shows price history for vint buff sandvich. It has remained generally the same for the last bunch of months but at one time was listed at a key when the key was closer to its natural price of 3 ref. As the key increases this item is only listed in ref and not because it lost value but because the key pulled away from it.

Anecdotally, if the seller didn't care, would you rather pay 4 ref for an item or 1 key. Most of you would do the 4 ref.

In this vain of thought I am suggesting that all the items that currently use keys as a price should equally be considered. In other words, the just because the Key increased in value doesn't mean the Bills Hat did. Did that hat become more desirable? And for what reason? Can you argue that the Bills hat is 50% more valuable than it was 5 months ago?

Based on that I see no reason that the Bills Hat should remain at its lofty price and should instead be something closer to 5 keys.

Please don't give the weak arguement that that the Bills is considered currency. Its a damn hat who's value has stablized. Nothing more.

Last edited by CHARLIE | trade.tf; 7 Mar, 2013 @ 10:58am

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Showing 1-15 of 83 comments

Macho Man 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:04am

Simple keys don't go up, ref goes down. Why have keys remained stable in terms of RL money, while ref goes down? Because ref is a currency that is inflated because its not capped.

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:20am

Just because an item has other uses does not make it no longer a currency. Gold is the basic currency. At one point in time, all US currency was backed by gold or silver at the US Treasury. Gold is also incredibly useful in circuitry. That does not make it any less of a currency. The value of keys remains relatively stable over short periods of time, but overall has deflated since my trading career began, and since they came into existence. Refined deflates in value at a much faster pace, thus making the value of a key in terms of a refined increase, when its actual monetary value does not increase at the same proportion.

norby89 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:28am

Keys did not increase in value, I don't know where people are getting this from. Keys have risen in price in terms of metal, their value remained pretty much the same. As a consequence metal has devalued and so did all the low tier items along with it (crafts hats, miscs, weapons etc). Just because metal holds less value there's no need to increase the price of the rest of the low tier items since nothing has changed. It still takes 2 weapons to craft a Scrap or 3 Ref to craft a hat.

Only thing that changed is that the transition from low tier to mid-high tier now requires a bigger investment of low tier items. This is the reason why Bill's Hats still are and should be the same price, keys didn't increase in value. But that's not all, now if you buy Keys from the Mann Co Store/Market you can get more bang for your buck since you can trade that key for more metal than before thus ending up with more items.

Last edited by norby89; 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:47am

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:33am

Originally posted by Kahgro:
Simple keys don't go up, ref goes down. Why have keys remained stable in terms of RL money, while ref goes down? Because ref is a currency that is inflated because its not capped.

Ref has not deflated at all.

http://backpack.tf/vote/311/3/0
http://backpack.tf/vote/336/3/0

These 2 item price histories show a stable price thru the period of major price increase in the key. If ref had devalued than these items would be forced to increase price by the same 50%. They didn't show any move. If you look accross all, lower value, items, none of them show the needed price increase that would be typical if ref was deflating.

I have pointed out vintage items but could also find older genuine items as examples. Both of which are unaffected by the drop system or store purchases.

I also want to add that my arguement said nothing anout the RL value. I am only concerned with the trading market. The money connection is irrelevant.

As far as cap. There is about the same amount of ref in the game now as a month ago. Another sign that there has been no deflation in metal.

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:38am

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:
Originally posted by Kahgro:
Simple keys don't go up, ref goes down. Why have keys remained stable in terms of RL money, while ref goes down? Because ref is a currency that is inflated because its not capped.

Ref has not deflated at all.

http://backpack.tf/vote/311/3/0
http://backpack.tf/vote/336/3/0

These 2 item price histories show a stable price thru the period of major price increase in the key. If ref had devalued than these items would be forced to increase price by the same 50%. They didn't show any move. If you look accross all, lower value, items, none of them show the needed price increase that would be typical if ref was deflating.

I have pointed out vintage items but could also find older genuine items as examples. Both of which are unaffected by the drop system or store purchases.

I also want to add that my arguement said nothing anout the RL value. I am only concerned with the trading market. The money connection is irrelevant.

As far as cap. There is about the same amount of ref in the game now as a month ago. Another sign that there has been no deflation in metal.

The money connection is extremely relevant, as that is a clear indication of an items actual value. You're judging items' value in terms of other items' value, not taking into account that both values are changing. Since short term inflation of the US dollar is essentially negligible, we can assume it as a standard for the point of this explanation. The value of a refined metal in terms of US dollars has decreased at a much higher rate than the value of a key in terms of a dollar. This is because of unchecked refined inflation, due to idling accounts. While the value of a key has decreased minorly over time, what you are witnessing and incorrectly analyzing is a hyper-inflation of the supply of refined into the market, and thus the deflation of its value in terms of US dollars.

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:39am

Originally posted by samhudson333:
Just because an item has other uses does not make it no longer a currency. Gold is the basic currency. At one point in time, all US currency was backed by gold or silver at the US Treasury. Gold is also incredibly useful in circuitry. That does not make it any less of a currency. The value of keys remains relatively stable over short periods of time, but overall has deflated since my trading career began, and since they came into existence. Refined deflates in value at a much faster pace, thus making the value of a key in terms of a refined increase, when its actual monetary value does not increase at the same proportion.

Dual purpose is the reason no one uses gold as its national currency anymore.

What someone sells a key for outside the game has no bearing on the trading value. These are two seperate markets that share some goods.

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:43am

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:
Originally posted by samhudson333:
Just because an item has other uses does not make it no longer a currency. Gold is the basic currency. At one point in time, all US currency was backed by gold or silver at the US Treasury. Gold is also incredibly useful in circuitry. That does not make it any less of a currency. The value of keys remains relatively stable over short periods of time, but overall has deflated since my trading career began, and since they came into existence. Refined deflates in value at a much faster pace, thus making the value of a key in terms of a refined increase, when its actual monetary value does not increase at the same proportion.

Dual purpose is the reason no one uses gold as its national currency anymore.

What someone sells a key for outside the game has no bearing on the trading value. These are two seperate markets that share some goods.

Dual purpose is not at all the reason that gold is no longer used as a primary unit of currency. We no longer back our dollar with a unit of gold because gold has grown in value such that a penny can not buy a noticeable amount. You need a large amount of money to get a noticeable amount of gold.

The cash to hats market does indeed have a large effect on trading value, as it is an enormous portion of the economy. It is simply another form of currency buying items, and is in no way exempt from the principles of economics.

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 11:52am

http://tf2finance.com/keys/

Here you can see that while the value of a key in terms of refined has increased over time, the value of a key in terms of US dollars has decreased over time, though much slower. This shows that the value of keys has deflated, while the value of refined has deflated much faster.

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:09pm

Originally posted by samhudson333:
http://tf2finance.com/keys/

Here you can see that while the value of a key in terms of refined has increased over time, the value of a key in terms of US dollars has decreased over time, though much slower. This shows that the value of keys has deflated, while the value of refined has deflated much faster.

Irrelevent to trading. Also, as for the RL value. Ref has droped 5% in monetary value in the last 2 months. It would need to drop over 20% to show a correlation to the change in value in the trading. The RL argument just doesnt hold up.

In fact the stable price of $.36 to $.40, for ref, in ref, actually proves that its value hasnt been lost at all. Thank you for the money angle, it is helping my point now.

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:13pm

Originally posted by samhudson333:
Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:

Dual purpose is the reason no one uses gold as its national currency anymore.

What someone sells a key for outside the game has no bearing on the trading value. These are two seperate markets that share some goods.
Dual purpose is not at all the reason that gold is no longer used as a primary unit of currency. We no longer back our dollar with a unit of gold because gold has grown in value such that a penny can not buy a noticeable amount. You need a large amount of money to get a noticeable amount of gold.

The cash to hats market does indeed have a large effect on trading value, as it is an enormous portion of the economy. It is simply another form of currency buying items, and is in no way exempt from the principles of economics.

Exactly, Gold's value is independant of the function of the whole economy. It is one commedity and can not be used to represent all productive efforts that take place in the economy.

#10

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:13pm

Originally posted by F | CHARLIE:
Originally posted by samhudson333:
http://tf2finance.com/keys/

Here you can see that while the value of a key in terms of refined has increased over time, the value of a key in terms of US dollars has decreased over time, though much slower. This shows that the value of keys has deflated, while the value of refined has deflated much faster.

Irrelevent to trading. Also, as for the RL value. Ref has droped 5% in monetary value in the last 2 months. It would need to drop over 20% to show a correlation to the change in value in the trading. The RL argument just doesnt hold up.

In fact the stable price of $.36 to $.40, for ref, in ref, actually proves that its value hasnt been lost at all. Thank you for the money angle, it is helping my point now.

It's not at all irrelevant to trrading, it is an enormous portion of all trading. You cannot just deem a market irrelevant because you do not participate in it. The graphs show that the value of ref has declined, while the value of keys in terms of ref has increased, showing a decline in the value of refined. It's not really a debate, I'm telling you fact right now. I'm an economics major, I know what I'm talking about here. The supply of refined has increased, and thus the value has decreased. It's incredibly simple, and not at all a matter of personal opinions.

#11

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:18pm

Because you thru it out. I have two bachalors degrees in business.

Didn't someone just say that keys also declined in dollar value thus showing its disconnect to the trading market.

How much has the supply of refined increase? Hasn't the supply of what the refined could buy also increased? And not just the drop items either. Aren't people still crafting items thus destroying some refined?

#12

Hudson 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:20pm

Yes, I said that keys have declined in monetary value, but at a much slower rate than the decline of refined. This is because all keys have to be purchased, while ref is freely given to the ever growing number of TF2 players, through item drops that are crafted into metal.

#13

CHARLIE | trade.tf 7 Mar, 2013 @ 12:42pm

Originally posted by samhudson333:
Yes, I said that keys have declined in monetary value, but at a much slower rate than the decline of refined. This is because all keys have to be purchased, while ref is freely given to the ever growing number of TF2 players, through item drops that are crafted into metal.

The ratios don't match the trading differences.

#14