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To start trading you will need a Team Fortress 2 Premium Account.

To obtain that Account, add the minimum amount of money to your Steam Wallet.
That is $5 US Dollar, €5 Euro, £5 Pounds, depending on where you live.
With that money in your account, you will then need to open Team Fortress 2, and buy something from the Mann Co. Store.

Please Note:
Most things in the Mann Co. Store are overpriced AF.
I recommend buying a Mann Co. Supply Crate Key as you can always trade that with people.

After that you are done, now you own a Team Fortress 2 Premium Account.

To set up your Mobile Authenticator you will need:

• A Phone
  
• A Working Phone Number/SIM-Card (Can be deactivated after use, but if the account is stolen, it might be harder to recover it.)

Here is a "How to" from Steam. This will help you set up your Mobile Authenticator.

Unusual Effect's Short-Form's can be found in the "Unusual Trading" Index.

Currencies are used to give Items a certain value.
In Team Fortress 2 these Currencies consist of Keys and Metal.


Two Items of the Same Class Type, can be crafted into a singular Scrap Metal.
One Scrap Metal is worth 0.11 Refined (0.11 Ref), because you need Nine Scrap Metal to craft One Refined Metal.
Three Scrap Metal will result in One Reclaimed Metal which is 0.33 Refined (0.33 Ref).
Three Reclaimed Metal will result in One Refined Metal which is 1 Refined (1 Ref).

You can find the Current Price for Keys on the Steam Community Market or on https://backpack.tf/stats/Unique/Mann%20Co.%20Supply%20Crate%20Key/Tradable/Craftable.

As a trader, Steam is really useful, but there are certain websites that can help you even more.
This section of the Guide lists three of these helpful sites.

https://backpack.tf/
Backpack.TF is a site where you can look at prices of Items, other people's inventories and much more!

https://scrap.tf/
Scrap.TF is a site where you can find automated bots to trade with and raffles you can join.

https://bazaar.tf/
Bazaar.TF is a trade based website, upon which you can post trades and/or find a trade you would like to make with a user.



Here is a small tutorial on how to Add a trade on Bazaar.tf.

Step One:
Login with Steam.



Step Two:
Open the Dropdown Menu and click on "Settings".


Step Three:
Go to "General" and add your Trade Offer Link. (If you don't know where to find it, look at the "Trade Offer Link" Section.)


Step Four:
Click on "New".


Step Five:
Add the Items you would like to trade, out of your Inventory.


Step Six:
Add the items you would like to trade for your item.


Step Seven:
Add a few words to describe your trade and click "Add Trade" to finish.

This section of the Guide will help you locate your Trade Offer Link.

Step One: Go to your Steam Profile and click on "Inventory".

Step Two: Click on Trade Offers.


Step Three: Click on "Who can send me Trade Offers?".


Step Four: Your Trade Offer Link is located right under the word "Trade URL".

Item Rarity is shown by the color of the Item In-Game.
This list shows what Item Rarities exist and in the parenthesis the corresponding hexadecimal color code (Nerds only ~UwU~).

• Faded Blue(#B0C3D9)
  
• Light Blue(#5E98D9)
  
• Blue(#4B69FF)
  
• Purple(#8847FF)
  
• Pink(#D32CE6)
  
• Red(#EB4B4B)

Decorated Weapons are reskins of the Normal (Default) weapons. There is a lot to know about them, but this guide only touches on these lightly. These items have different wear, similar to skins found in Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The quality from least damaged to most damaged goes: Factory New (FN), Minimal Wear (MW), Field-Tested (FT), Well-Worn (WW), Battle-Scarred (BS).



Worth Mentioning:
items have a Magenta color. (#A50F79)
These Weapons are given to Developers of the Game.

This is a small introduction to a Consumable Items. All Consumable items are purchased from the Steam Community Market or Mann Co. Store, or can be traded from another player. They are NOT OBTAINABLE in any other means.

Consumable Items have a certain amount of uses and will then disappear. Most consumable items like paint, crates, Tour of Duty Tickets and Keys have ONE USE ONLY. The ones covered will be:

• Crates
  
• Keys
  
• Name & Description Tags
  
• Paint Cans
  
• Tour of Duty Ticket
  
• Kill Streak Kits

These are dropped in-game, and change with the update or season you are currently playing. Opened with a Key.

Purchased from the Steam Community Market or Mann Co. Store, or can be traded from another player. Limited to one use per Crate. Allows for a random chance at any of the crates corresponding items listed.

You can change the Name and Description of Weapons and Cosmetics with these two items. The Name Tag is worth more than the Description Tag interestingly enough.

Paints, also known as Paint Cans, are used to dye your Cosmetics. There are many different Paints, but the three most used, and most desired are:

• A Distinctive Lack of Hue - Black (#141414)
  
• An Extraordinary Abundance of Tinge - White (#E6E6E6)
  
• Pink as Hell - Pink (#FF69B4)

There are also "Team Paints" which change the color of your item depending on the Team you are in.

Used to receive drops and/or rewards from Mann vs Machine Mode.

Applied to any weapon to track kills, or can be specialized to track specific kills against one class. These tracks can be stacked.

Unusual Items are really desired, to make it easier to trade with these, people use Short-Forms for some Unusual Effects.

You DO NOT need to learn these! The list shows only a few of these.
If you save this guide under your favorites you can look it up at any time.

















This list was created by user "Chocolate" on Backpack.TF's forum, props for details. It was posted on August 9, 2014.

I made a whole guide about that! ^w^
Check it out!
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2189593340

Guide Icon
Team Fortress Wiki - Trading

Item Rarity
Team Fortress Fandom - Item Quality[teamfortress.fandom.com]

Team Fortress Wiki - Item Quality[teamfortress.fandom.com]

Unusual Trading
Backpack.TF - Chocolate's Guide to Unusual Effects[teamfortress.fandom.com]

Other pictures used were created by DrSnipy.
Proofreading and edits were provided by Berkyjef.