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Where Unusual effects come from
Every Unusual effect belongs to an effect pool, and each case uses one pool. Valve adds a new pool with most Summer, Scream Fortress and Smissmas updates, so the effects above are grouped by the update that added them. The list and the pools come straight from TF2's game files.
While a Scream Fortress event is running, cosmetic cases and taunt cases unbox that year's Halloween effects instead of their usual ones. Crates keep their normal effects.
How the drop odds are worked out
Inside a pool, Valve lists some effects more than once. An effect that fills 3 of 18 slots shows up on about 1 in 6 Unusuals from that pool; one that fills 1 slot shows up on about 1 in 18. The percentage on each effect is that share. It says how rare an effect is compared with the other effects in the same case, not how likely a case is to give an Unusual at all.
How the price ranking works
TF2Bolt takes every Unusual hat or taunt that pricedb.io prices, groups them by effect and averages the prices. Rank #1 has the highest average. The number of items priced is shown, so you can tell a ranking backed by hundreds of items from one backed by a few.
Hats and misc items are ranked separately from taunts because their markets are different. The ranking is checked again every few days, and the change column shows how far an effect's average moved since an earlier check.
Why brand-new effects have no price
pricedb.io only prices items that are listed and traded. Right after an event launches, the new effects have few or no listings, so they stay unranked until pricedb.io has prices for them. TF2Bolt does not guess a rank for them in the meantime.
Direct price versus estimate
When the exact item and effect have a pricedb.io price, the Price Checker uses it. If not, it uses the same item with the next lower-ranked effect, or the item's typical price across its other effects, and labels the result as an estimate.
Common questions
How do I check an Unusual TF2 item price?
Match the exact item, quality and Unusual effect. Use the Price Checker for a public backpack, then check whether its item value is a direct match or an estimate.
Does the effect ranking give the price of my hat?
No. The ranking compares reference prices across item-and-effect combinations. The same effect on different hats can have different values; use the exact item and effect together.