Trough & Member "Betas"?

Today we have another Member item for the Ol' Barn den, the Trough. It is in Jam Mart Furniture, and great  item for horse lovers. It is resold from Summer 2012. In case you didn't know, it is not called water trough because when you click it it will turn into food (as far as I remember)!

Today's side topic should be interesting. I have brought up the topic of what should be described as a "Beta Rare" before. Now, over the next week or so, I'll explain a bit farther.

First of all, you have to know, "Beta Rare" isn't the right way to say it. Beta means something that hasn't been released yet. So a Beta Rare would be a rare that has never been released, like light purple Gazelle Horns. That also backfires on you when you say "I'm Beta!" haha. What we mean is and item that was sold when AJ when in Beta Testing, before the game was fully released. So we should say that the item is from beta, not that it is beta.

That being said, what is an item from Beta? There are two ways of looking at this, an item that was in Beta, but when the full game came out it was never sold again. I'll call that a true item from Beta. Or, you could say it about an item sold in Beta and also a bit after Beta ended. I don't like that explanation, I will tell you why later.

Beta was a short time between July 2010 and September 2010. Even I joined slightly after Beta (November 2010). Any item that was not sold in Beta cannot be considered an item from Beta, make sense? And yet people insist on calling stuff like Spikes and Scary Batwings and Fox Hat and Worns "Beta". Here are the release dates for those items:

All Spikes ~ July 2011
Scary Batwings ~ October 2010 and Sky High
Fox Hat ~ Beta, but released about five times over the next few years
Worn Blanket (normal colors) ~ October 2010

None of those items are from Beta. Now let me show you the true Member Clothing items from Beta, and the less rare ones that were also sold after, but never resold. If an item is resold, it is no longer "from Beta". That is why Top Hats aren't considered "from Beta". Later on I will do Nonmember and den stuff, but now I will focus on Member rares.

True Items From Beta
-Gazelle Horns
-Founders' Hat
-Beard

Items from Beta and after, Never Resold
-Mask
-Lion Hat
-Monkey Hat
-Sword
-Wings
-Elf Armor & Helmet

I know what you are thinking. From the list of items from Beta and after, but never resold, only one is Rare. That is why I do not like that definition. The bottom five on the bottom list were sold in Beta, and have stayed in the shops until today. Unfortunately, the Lion Hat is on clearance, and, knowing AJHQ, it will be resold, making it no longer straight from Beta.

Also, the first list is extremely short. Why? AJHQ resells things too much. At one point, there were so many super Rare items that a new player could easily get one in a month. But because people were greedy and jealous they asked AJHQ to resell them, and they did. Rares are not bad, only the owners of the Rares can be bad. So lets not make AJHQ think we are against Rares, okay?

PS: Thanks for 300 hits yesterday! I am thinking of a contest we could do once we reach 50,000 hits.