Over the past few days I’ve
been busy with trading, especially since I use a number of fairly helpful sites
to get my trades to go better. I sold a pair of earbuds for a Genuine Merc’s
Pride Scarf and a Vintage Lugermorph, and I have also amassed a large amount of
metal and keys at the moment to keep some of my assets liquid. I bought a Bills
Hat for 8 keys and 2 refined (painted Balaclavas are forever) and I’m now
watching the unusual market, waiting to see what my next unusual market move
should be; should I sell my Ten Gallon with Orbiting Flame and use some of my
new, rare promos to help me get that Sunbeams Hotrod, or maybe a beams Ten
Gallon? Or, should I move on and get myself a Pyro unusual, start to expand my
backpack a bit, 300 slots is pretty small, or grab those miscellaneous items
I’ve been wanting. There’s so much to do, but I didn’t always have this much
“power” in the market.
Recently I’ve been trading
more as I’ve found myself with a larger status of wealth. As this has happened,
and my voice has grown on a few servers that I spend a good amount of time on,
I’ve been asked if I would make a cute little guide for trading for everyone
who wants to really get into it, and see if they can get that unusual that
they’ve been dreaming of, or that Genuine Maul, or whatever else it is they’ve
been yelling at me about so they won’t have to ask me for price-checking so
much. So, I guess I’ve finally caved.
I am by no means rich, even
by the standards of the unusual market; there are many more with a lot “money”
than I have, but it is no small feat to get where I have. I have been trading
since the update was released, on September 30th 2010. Using tf2items (click here to
visit the site) you can see what you had, all the way back to November 25th 2010, back when I had two hats, a
vintage ten gallon and vintage pickelhaube, a few weapons. On September 27th, 2010 I had my first bills hat,
albeit with no other hats, I had jumped up to a major goal in two days. On
December 6th, 2010, I got my first pair of buds.
At this time, I had a very simple goal: get my favorite vintage hats, a bills
hat, and earbuds for myself. That, and with the few vintage miscellaneous that
were available at the time, I would be set. This was before the second misc.
slot, a time where you could only trade up to 8 items at a time, a time where
all unusual were valued at least 2 earbuds, when a key was 1 refined, and so
were black and white paints. Name and description tags were a reclaimed each,
there were no such thing as stranges, and the economy was still unsure of the
value of most hats. Vintage was king, and I was caught up in it all. I spent
all day at the face of my computer, feeling like a stockbroker looking at
stocks going across the screen. By the end of January, 2011 I was
pretty well established. I had a vintage hat for every class, minus the medic,
earbuds, a vintage whiskered gentleman (probably the only item that I have
refused to sell to this day, even with some pretty good offers) and a little
bit of trade stock.
I won’t bother re-capping
every tiny event, so I’ll fast forward to some of the bigger bits. After a
while, I sold my earbuds for something stupid that was a good offer at the
time. I had nearly my collection, when I decided I wanted earbuds back. So, as
a complete change of directions, I put all of my items into earbuds, and a
bills hat. Going back, I ended up selling my bills and earbuds for a 8 of my
favorite vintage hats, all painted a variety of nice colors, which stayed with
me for close to 6 months, and I would end up selling them all eventually, one
at a time, except for a vintage panama, which I still have.
Fast forward through
another few incidents of me having earbuds, leading up to me selling them for
Fallout: New Vegas, quickly realizing I made a mistake, I started trading
again. By this time, the market was completely different, pretty much the same
market that we have today, except when I got right back in earbuds were still
going for 2 bills, and earbuds were still under 18 keys,, I think 15 to be
exact. In a few weeks I bring myself back up to earbuds level, and start
getting my hats back. At this point, I had no real drive for getting into the
unusual market, until I got my lucky break.
Right into the beginning
weeks of 2012, around the 3rd, a guy saw that I had earbuds. He
freaked out, and traded me. I asked him what he was interested in, and he puts
up his unusual. It’s a Big Chief with Orbiting Fire he had unboxed a few days
ago. I asked him if he just wanted my buds. The events that transpired have
changed my trading life since.
I’m now in what I refer to
as the unusual age. For those of you who haven’t read my blog, I’ve covered it,
and I’ll do a bit of a recap. I sold the Big Chief for 3 earbuds, and quickly
sold two of them for a vintage bills hat, painted balaclavas are forever. I
sold my earbuds and vintage bills for a burning magistrate’s mullet, and sold
the mullet for a Nuts and Bolts One Man Army and Steaming Sola Topi; this
turned out to be one of my biggest blunders, and ended up giving my Army and a
backpack expander for a Peace Crocleather slouch. I held onto these two for nearly a month
before a friend came by with an Orbiting Fire Texas Ten Gallon. After two weeks
of negotiation, I gave my two unusuals and 1 key for the Ten Gallon, and we’ve
been together since. In the meantime, however, I traded up to get another pair
of earbuds, and ended up selling them, and a vintage procedure mask for a
Dragonborn Helm with orbiting planets, selling ti to an eager friend of mine
for 50 keys, and acquired 2 earbuds, and have just recently sold a pair of buds
for a genuine merc’s pride scarf, and a vintage Lugermorph.
Today, I’m looking at the
unusual market in a different way, seeing all of the power that I never thought
possible. It took me around 100 hours of trading to get my first pair of earbuds.
Today, I’m worth around 5 to 6, and I sold a pair, so altogether 6-7, in around
500 hours of trading, not too bad, I think. That’s my story of how I got my
little chunk of the TF2 market; time, luck, and patience. Tomorrow, I’ll go
more into the methods of how I acquired my wealth, and maybe help you out too.
--Santa
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