Way back in May of 2009, Valve introduced Team Fortress players to the Sniper vs. Spy Update, which at the time was TF2’s most ambitious game update yet – providing both the Sniper and Spy classes with three significant new weapons each, as well as several new maps, alongside a brand new gamemode. But this update brought us something else, something which would leave a lasting impact not only on TF2 itself, but on all of Valve’s future work, as a whole… hats.

Yes, the Sniper vs. Spy Update was when TF2 got its 9 first rare cosmetic headgear items – one for each playable class. Since then, Valve (alongside numerous item designers from the Team Fortress community) have added 259 more hats to TF2- and so, by now, most people have forgotten about those 9 original hats… which makes it all the more interesting that Valve has actually decided to permanently retire them from the game’s item circuit.

Though we may take it for granted these days, Steam Trading might just represent one of the most significant innovations in the field of in-game community interaction in recent years. Trading games, coupons, and items, all within the Steam community. The Team Fortress 2 economy alone was estimated last year to be worth 20 million dollars – and that was a very conservative estimate, made only 6 months after the game had become free-to-play.

And a lot of people have made some a lot of money by buying and selling these in-game items. But since so much of that activity takes place outside the Steam ecosystem (in the so-called gray market), it could be quite difficult to track what’s going on in the marketplace at large. But it seems as though Valve have found a way to remedy that problem in a pretty unique way. Read on!