New to this Trading Thing.

[Dan Hunter]

Hey guys, It's Dan. You might know me from two years ago or something, that's not really important.

I'm here today because i was inspired by the youtube series "From nothing to Something." I saw how he literally went from 1 scrap, to keys, to buds, to unusuals.

At first i was not impressed, but then i looked on backpac.tf and saw that some unusuals go for up to $747. That's enough to buy me a gaming rig. So now i'm very interested.

So, I have 1 key and about 26 refined metal and i need your opinion on what i should do with it.

*Please do not take advantage of me.
*I am willing to take risks, but not crazy risks.
*Yes i know wealth does not come over night.

Thank you so much for reading, and have a very Merry Christmas.


To those who are wondering how i got to where i am:
I was very lucky a few days ago, I used all of my "Collected" items from over the months and made Spy and Melee tokens, and crafted them all. I made 12 Sharp dressers. And sold them for varying prices ranging from 1.66ref to 2.33ref. The most lucky break i got was just this morning when someone traded me A nunhood, runner's warm up, and a wraith wrap for one sharp Dresser. I am one lucky duck.

 

[Wize]

Save and build up. Get metal and make them keys and start saving up on keys. Once you know the prices more around the market and can see good deals that you can make a profit on when reselling items you'll start working your way up.

 

[Nix]

lol, I've been getting interested in unusual trading and came across the same video.

The three things you need to be good at trading are Time, Patience, and Manners. It's actually a pretty slow process, and those unusuals you're seeing that are over $700 won't be within your reach for a very long time unless you happen to be very lucky at unboxing.

Basically, using TF2 as a get-rich-quick scheme is almost impossible.

But if you keep going slowly, you'll collect a lot of stuff and get big breaks here and there. Good luck.

First thing I would with 26 ref is to buy 3 keys. You're leftover with about 6 ref. Take half of that and buy a bunch of random weapons. Try not to buy duplicates and be sure to buy them 2 for a scrap. Start selling those weapons for 1 scrap each to random people while you play. This gives you a backup income.

Always have backup ref.

Do the same thing with your keys. Buy at a low price and sell for a profit. This way you'll get pretty far pretty soon.

 

[Dan Hunter]

Took your advice Honorbound, i now have 4 keys and 7 refs. Ill hold onto these untill the price goes up on them some more.

 

[fatyguy]

Backpack.tf is your friend as it is the main guideline(GUIDELINE as in suggestion, there is no problem selling over or under what backpack says) for pricing of items. You can also use it for;

-looking at others backpacks
-post ads
-it has a trade calculator
-voting on prices

Other tf2 trading sites that you can use to reach the maximum range of people;
(Note: These are your basic, post and look through ads website)

-tf2outpost.com
-bazaar.tf
Has a handy currency converter.
-dispenser.tf
-TF2 trading post

(I only use the first 2 and have no experience with dispencer or trading post)

I also recommend TF2 raffle

Now onto the basics for trading...where to even start? Well lets get a quick and dirty list going.

-you should understand the basics of buy low, sell high
-to maximize your trading effectiveness lurk on trade servers
-DO NOT CRAFT HATS, a large amount of craft hats are valued at 1.33 ref which is a huge lose. You may get lucky but in the long run it's a lose.

There are a few other tips but I'm having a dumb right now :/

What I would do from where you are now, buy keys, find quick sales and snatch them up. (keep in mind that keys are shooting up in price lately, 2 months ago they were only 6-6.33)

Also a quick note on turning real money into items; I've found that buying giftwrap which sells for a key but is .40 less then keys in the mannstore.

 

[Nix]

What I would do from where you are now, buy keys, find quick sales and snatch them up. (keep in mind that keys are shooting up in price lately, 2 months ago they were only 6-6.33)

Weren't they like 2.33 a year ago?

 

[fatyguy]

Weren't they like 2.33 a year ago?

I was still on hiatus from tf2 at that point and also not a huge trader but I believe so.

Also that 6-6.33 range was a pretty stable price for quite a while, they only recently started shooting up

 

[UnderCoverSpy16]

And then there is me haha. For some reason after 1 year if tf2 I till can't afford and strange ambassador or a key haha