Party hats are going to rapidly rise. Why? First we have to get into the statistics. Why did they drop so rapidly in the first place? It's because before the 3k trade limit, stakers were the richest players in the game. Most would think merchanters would be the richest, but no. A player who can double his money in under 5 minutes, can make quite a load of cash. On my defense/prayer pure (Snow_Ninjas) I went from 150m-470m staking. I know 6 people on the game who have the max ammount of cash. One got it from scamming (angel_cape), the other saved rares from classic (phat_shock), the last 4 all got it from staking (O_Solo_Mio and a few others). Merchanting isn't what it's really said to be, richest merchanter I know only has around 1.2billion gp (God__I) and he spends his life merchanting.
How do these stakers use money? After max cash, you can get more money, but it doesn't actually show you the worth. If you examine it, you just see "2,144,700,000 gold peices" (max). So, they would invest in rares. Buying out all the rares, most of all party hats. This caused a steady gain in the price of phats, a bit more than they were actually worth. Now, when the updates kicked in, stakers couldn't do what they loved most. It became boring with no reward. The few that didn't quit started skilling. For that they needed money, and therefore started selling a few party hats here and there. But you don't understand. I would estimate an average of around 1,000 party hat's in active playing users hands. This is probobly alot less than your estimate. The reason?
Angry stakers and merchanters have quit runescape, pissed about the updates - leaving their rares in their bank, and abandoning Runescape. Now, when theres 50-100 stakers selling party hats, and only a handful of people buying them, the price obviously dropped. This caused people to get scared and sell theirs too. Now there were over half the party hats on the exchange, but no buyers. The prices literally bottemed out. But while the street price of party hat's have been dropping, the literal price has been rising. More and more stakers and merchanters have quit than ever. The guy I told you about (God__I) has played since RS Beta (2001), and is gone. This caused the actual rarity of party hat's even greater than it has ever been. 2001-2004 blue party hats went from 1gp to 45million gold peices . From 2004-2007 they went from 45million to over 500million. Now, with all the new player's and wealth being brought into the game, the literal price of a Gold Peice has dropped. Also, with item lending you can make 400k overnight, just lending a party hat for junk...adding to it's wealth.
The most part of rares have finally bottemed out and are now starting to rise. Can you imagine what the blue party hat will be worth in 2010? If we stick to pure stats it should reach, an estimated 5,555 billion gold peices. Now in 3 years, how many people with party hat's do you think will still play the game. Most have outgrown runescape, and very few actually sell. In conclusion I would just like to say, I think all of you predicting a price drop in "phats" are in for a little surprise.
Sincerely,
Snowboard-Ninja
