PSA and Guide to Collector's Quality; Or, How Red Text on an Item can be and is Worth a Fortune, or, You're Rich and You Don't Know It

[Ravenholmzombies]

Hello forumers. This topic is both a PSA and a Guide to Collector's quality, which has been an almost criminally under explored item quality in TF2. In this guide I explain the market, history and rarity of Collector's items, as well as the fact that you could well be sitting on a goldmine and not have realised it. For the gist of it, check out the guide, or hit me up with any specific questions here. And for goodness sake, check the names of your Chemistry sets before you go deleting anything. 
 

http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=514694824

[λngelღмander]

I see a lot of forum member names in the collaborators list. Nice work, it's a cool guide. Quite comprehensive. I'm definitely not the target audience, but I hope someone finds it of use.

[Jams]

Really cool that you made this, hope it helps preventing somebody unknowingly deleting a kit. 

[Ravenholmzombies]

We've already lost a Collector's Antlers and Human Cannonball set like that, so here's hoping it stops any other tragedies happening.

[FishtheFish]

We've already lost a Collector's Antlers and Human Cannonball set like that, so here's hoping it stops any other tragedies happening.

That sentence was painful to read. May the lost profit rest in peace.

[Draco Blaze]

We've already lost a Collector's Antlers and Human Cannonball set like that, so here's hoping it stops any other tragedies happening.

 

Except the Cannonball was deleted out of spite because no one would offer over 2 buds on it at the time. [Context: Sets went for a max of around 2 buds at that time. Most sets went for less, but buds were also ~10 keys. The prices are estimates based on memory]

Oh well, makes my Cannonball Set the last for that hat.

 

http://www.tf2outpost.com/trade/22972576

[Tasty Salamanders]

 

 

With the introduction of these strangifiers for items, the Collector's version of the item takes a sharp rise in value

This is exactly why getting a Collector's Eureka Effect was only my priority list. It is the only Dr. Grordbort weapon without a Strangifier so the Strangifier for it is almost inevitable, best to get in early for that one.

 

Also the price for it looks to be going up after the Gun Mettle buffs.

 

Side note: It still surprises me that the Collector's Festive Gloves of Running Urgently is still not priced, it is the last unpriced Collector's Festive after the Collector's Festive Wrangler was finally priced less than 3 weeks ago.

 

(I guess I feel compelled to mention it was my purchase of a Collector's Festive Crusader's Crossbow that was used to price it as the 4th most expensive Collector's weapon. I was personally thought it odd that my purchase was accepted considering the circumstances.)

[HarryG]

It is a very nice guide.

[CourtneyWendysCommercials]

ahhhhh, Raven. I remember buying a Black Watch Collector Kit from you last year

[Argos]

I've been making money flipping collectors items for a long time, so its nice that you made this guide so that others can participate and learn about their real value (and for the love of all red text, stop deleting them).

 

 

 

This is evidenced by no Collector's sets having an original item ID above 2,800,000,000

 

I've logged the ID of every Collectors item I've ever flipped, and while I still wasn't sure whether or not they had completely stopped dropping (thanks for confirming that), I can confirm that number is a bit off. I currently have a Kunai Chemistry Set with the original ID: 2856381526

[Tasty Salamanders]

This is evidenced by no Collector's sets having an original item ID above 2,800,000,000

 

I've logged the ID of every Collectors item I've ever flipped, and while I still wasn't sure whether or not they had completely stopped dropping (thanks for confirming that), I can confirm that number is a bit off. I currently have a Kunai Chemistry Set with the original ID: 2856381526

 

I decided to check what the date difference would be with those IDs using the TF2 Tools: ID ⇒ Date feature.

 

2800000000 is approximately 2014-07-22 5:47:02 am (UTC)

2856381526 is approximately 2014-08-09 12:55:33 pm (UTC)

 

That is about a 2.5 week difference (for the record, Love and War was released 2014-06-18). Also the next update after 2014-08-09 was on 2014-08-12, or exactly 4 weeks after 2800000000 should have came into existence. Obviously a whole month of extra availability of kind of important/relevant when it comes to rare items.

[Toxins]

I've recorded thousands of collector sets now, highest ID is 2,870,037,891 (2014-08-13 10:53:42 pm (UTC)).  This corresponds to https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/August_13,_2014_Patch

[Ravenholmzombies]

 

I decided to check what the date difference would be with those IDs using the TF2 Tools: ID ⇒ Date feature.

 

2800000000 is approximately 2014-07-22 5:47:02 am (UTC)

2856381526 is approximately 2014-08-09 12:55:33 pm (UTC)

 

That is about a 2.5 week difference (for the record, Love and War was released 2014-06-18). Also the next update after 2014-08-09 was on 2014-08-12, or exactly 4 weeks after 2800000000 should have came into existence. Obviously a whole month of extra availability of kind of important/relevant when it comes to rare items.

 

 

I've recorded thousands of collector sets now, highest ID is 2,870,037,891 (2014-08-13 10:53:42 pm (UTC)).  This corresponds to https://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/August_13,_2014_Patch

Thanks for this update, I'll add it to the guide.

[Tasty Salamanders]

I mentioned earlier that I was trying to collect level 99 Collector's Festives, so all this prompted me to compile the stats regarding the Collector's and get some trivia out of it.

 

* The most complete level for Collector's Festives is level 94, with 6 out of the 9 weapons currently available at that level in Collector's quality. Overall there are 7 Collector's Festives that are level 94.

* The second most complete levels for Collector's Festives are levels 32 and and 89, with 5 out of the 9 weapons currently available at those levels in Collector's quality. Overall there are 6 Collector's Festives that are level 32 and 5 Collector's Festives that are level 89.

* Levels 2, 15, 38, 48, and 80 are completely absent from the Collector's Festives.

 

EDIT: Given level 32 is one of the most common Collector's Festive level I decided to see if solaris32 had any of them since they are fairly substantial collector + level 32 collector, and yep, they have half of the level 32 Collector's Festives.