'Collector's cosmetics are a unique circumstance compared to most "non-Unusual" items and thus should be treated differently in any event.'

yes this is true, collectors items should not be compares to the majority of common non-unusuals but rather treated more similarly to unusuals. it is the same reason why we do not raise unusuals based solely on buyers as buyers come and go. this is evident and perfectly demonstrated in this suggestion. for the whole 2 month duration this suggestion has been up, there has only been a visible buyer at 220 keys for 2-3 of those days. the majority of the time there was no buy order at all available.

'Rare pieces of artworks in museums and private collections are regularly appraised even without having sold for years decades or even centuries. See generally: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mona_Lisa , https://theartwolf.com/art-market/most-valuable-paintings/ . While these valuations are not as accurate as a sale WOULD BE, they are MORE ACCURATE and therefore worthy of consideration; this situation is no different than that.'

not that I fully agree with the analogy of comparing these to artwork but in the case you've mentioned here. i'd argue it does not support your proposition because paintings like the Mona Lisa do not have any specific value. multiple people can appraise it sure but no single value is given to it because it is impossible to determine its true value without there ever being any sales. it is all guess work and estimation.

the reason why i do not agree with the analogy is because it is inaccurate to compare virtual tf2 items to paintings like the Mona Lisa in this example because they actually do have reasoning behind the valuation they are given. it is well known that the Mona Lisa is one of the most expensive paintings in existence (if not the most) despite never being sold (at least in hundreds of years). paintings are insured based on their supposed value and it holds the guiness world record for the highest ever insurance value on a painting. you're not going to be seeing a tf2 item such as this being given an insured value any time soon

all sources you'd be able to find indicate that there is no specific value to it specifically quoting: 'it is believed to be worth $850 million', 'other paintings by the artist were bought for...', 'the french government believes it to be worth 3 billion euros yearly'.

'It appears therefore fair to say that the Mona Lisa is an inestimable treasure'

'The Mona Lisa, the most expensive art piece in existence, is therefore invaluable and will not be sold any time soon. In a similar manner, it is not possible to precisely estimate the value of many other masterpieces.'

'Foamy misunderstands the purpose of a buy order in order to come to his conclusion.'

I'll let foamy speak for himself as I do not want to put any words in his mouth but I believe you're misunderstanding what he is saying in relation to buy-orders. the buy-order itself is not invalid as long as that buyer is willing to pay the listed amount for the item. the problem here is that the suggested price is not better than the current price. the current price was based off a sale that actually occurred. the suggested price here you are basing entirely on a single buyer who we have seen is not constantly willing to pay a specific amount which is evident when viewing buy-orders as a whole as they are always changing.

https://backpack.tf/suggestion/57de6ec9c4404560424e2471 - as pointed out by Mindacos:

'Extremely rare items like these should be treated like Unusuals when it comes to buy orders. Both of these are stuck with collectors as others have stated, and won't ever resell, making any sort of raise extremely arbitrary.

This would be similar to someone making a buy order of 500 Keys for a Bubbling Valhalla Helm. Only one exists and will ever exist, and it's stuck with a collector who won't EVER resell it. It doesn't mean that because of that buy order it should be worth that much.

That said, there's no point on raising an item that very clearly won't resell. Anyone can put up a buy order for one of these without ever needing to actually buy one, and it would create an endless span of pointless suggestions. Unless there's SALES, suggestions like these are invalid, and will not be accepted. This will apply to every single collectable rarity that's priced or not, for example: http://backpack.tf/stats/Unique/Team%20Fortress%202%20-%20Upgrade%20to%20Premium/Tradable/Non-Craftable/0'

'In other words, don't expect perfect statistics, as this is unfortunately impossible to guarantee.'

yes site administration has admitted perfection is impossible which is exactly why we only update items based upon valid sales that have occurred. it is impossible to determine an items value if it will never sell which is why in these situations we either leave an item outdated based upon the old data which was valid at the time or leave an item unpriced as there is no sales data available. in this case this is not an accurate price as demonstrated already. this 'update' would not be an updated value of this item, it would still reflect the items value inaccurately and give a false representation of its value. especially given a buy-order can disappear without purchasing the item at all at any given time.

just like the Mona Lisa situation you brought up, sure the wiki says it is worth 1 billion today but i think you're ignoring the fact that that value is literally based off an insurance valuation of $100 million in the 1960s adjusted for inflation. so if anything they are still estimating it off the original price valuation which in this case would be the current price set 8 years ago.

regardless, as mentioned in my previous 2 comments, there is no buyer at 220 keys anymore as they have since reduced their buy order to 150 keys so the suggested price will be invalid regardless.

Your first line is exactly why this should not pass, nor should all the other proposed buy order raises; if there is ever a time where you sell this, it can be suggested, and until that, it will have to remain outdated, just like any other item of this tier. This is actually very basic following of our rules so I do not understand the opposition to Blaze's comment here. Below, I will address the points you made, and at the end of the comment, the main reason this type of suggestion is not acceptable is highlighted.

1)

- This statement is straight up false. Nothing makes 220 an accurate price right now. Who is to say it won't sell for 1000 instead? that's a very large margin of error, far exceeding the accepted margin of error of the site. One might argue that it is unrealistic for this to sell for that amount, but the fact that we don't know is the exact reason why it best to wait for sales, in particular on rare items like this.

- You completely misinterpret the point Im trying to make with the artwork example - it is meant to outline why buy orders make no sense in a scenario where there is only one copy of the item available anyway, and why determining a price based on a buy order that holds no value makes no sense within our pricing system. I understand that pixel hats are not works of art, and you cannot have an art consultant look at your collectors items to determine their condition and whatnot to put a price on it. Prices on works of art that do not sell have insurance-related purposes, and there is no such thing in the virtual hat trading world. I am well aware of the limitations of my analogy, but for the purpose of the point I wanted to make it suffices.

2)

I am not misunderstanding anything about the purpose of buy orders for pricing purposes. The buy order is not invalid, it just holds no value for price suggestions. The fact that you have so many users blocked that require you to resort to this is a clear exception to the common purpose of buy orders, and the fact that such an exceptional case uses them differently does not mean that I do not know the purpose of buy orders.

Refer to the first point in 1) for support of that conclusion

3)

It is weird that you would attempt to debunk standing explanations on why we do not do certain things if you then also make the argument that this is an entirely different case. There is some truth in it, in the sense that almost all of these are case-by-case (BECAUSE they are such rare items), and I tried to generalize the different cases available by placing them into categories that most of them fit into, to provide a clear understanding of our rationale. Bear in mind that all of these were written for rare and/or glitched versions of otherwise regularly existing items. For unusuals, and anything in the unusual value tier list, this is not even considered, as no items in these price categories are raised by buy orders (which I'll get back to after addressing the remainder of your points)

4)

- The fundamental mistake you make here is that you have already decided for yourself that this price is more accurate. That's a fallacy that seems to be the core of your whole rationale here (especially looking at your conclusion), which already collapses the foundation of your critique.

- Of course we cannot guarantee perfect statistics, but that does not mean we can just make suggestions along the lines of "I think it should be worth this much". Evidently, there's a little more thought put into this one, but that does not mean that this is not wildly inaccurate. For this, it is also important to understand the difference between an 8-year-old value that is probably no longer accurate, and a freshly set price that is very likely not even remotely accurate either. One could argue that the 8 year old price holds no value anymore as a lot has happened since, but that would advocate wiping the price rather than slapping an arbitrary label on it now, based on nothing but a buyer that will evidently never get it through said buy order (or at least not now, which is what the suggestion would imply).

Main reason)

Note that I primarily went by what you said in the above, there is a far more obvious reason not to accept something like this:

If this would pass, I think everyone that owns a 1/1 would ensure that buy orders would be created for their hats, either by themselves or by others, as a means to increase their value. Hell, based on your train of thought, I can increase my hellfire conqueror sevenfold of what it was priced at last based on active buy orders (which for the same reason makes no sense), and that is even without any ill-intention. In a system such as this, it is important not to have clear loopholes that allow for very easy abuse; as stated it is very difficult to achieve perfection in this, but these buy order raises are a hard no based on that fact alone, regardless of the rebuttal to your explanation provided above; that is only there as a clarification for others, but primarily for you.

P.S.

In general, I think you get lost in lexical semantics too much. We try to define rules, goals, purposes, exceptions etc. as clear as possible so that the majority of people can understand it. I don't mind having loopholes pointed out because we can redefine rules and guidelines if they lead to too much confusion, but in this case, I think the issue is primarily that you argue towards what you have already determined to be the truth, rather than to use your arguments to find out the best course of action, and that the issue is not within our rules, goals, or analogies, but rather with your interpretation of them (as you seem to interpret them in the way that suits your case here without looking at the real point).