In my opinion, there are three major tiers of gifts:

1. Things that I want but could not have done before

These would be experiences or collectors items. Having lunch with Linus or PG would be examples of this category; items like a box of AirBnB's ObamaO's.

2. Things that I want and could get myself

For this one, there are two sub-categories: A. relevant B. shiny.

A. For a hackathon like photohackday, give away cameras. For something like hackforchange, hire exec to do community service for me or donate an OLPC under my name.

B. Give me something shiny. Galaxy Nexus, Kindle (though these are hard to split among a group). Money also works though a bit awkward (unless it's a big sum).

3. Things I don't want

I know you think your service is super awesome, but please don't just give me a pro account. Most of the times, I don't use it and therefore it's value to me is 0. Give it away with something else. (nb: dropbox space, on the other hand, would be valuable)

Personally, I'd love any of the following: Arduino, Amarino, Hackable RC Helicopter, Kickstarter funding. Basically gifts as platforms to hack more.

Other is allowing these hacks to be shown to people whom we respect and get feedback. Eg: "What does Jack Dorsey think about my bit coin hack."

So I'm insanely fond of these cheapo RC helicopters. Syma S107Gs etc.

What about a hackathon ABOUT those helicopters? Everyone gets helicopters, there's lots of parts, and the winner does something cool?

A RC helicopter-hackathon is definitely. I could think of tons of things that could be built over these tiny ones.

I haven't yet tried RC helicopters, but I'd definitely start on one.

wow, interesting. how hackable are they?

They are pretty simplistic. Haven't tried to understand them.

One problem is that they are infrared and not radio.

At http://crowdhack.crowdconf.com/ the winner got a nepalese knife http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kukri.

I really wanted to win that.

Glad to know about Khukuri being gifted in SF CrowdHack - i'm from Kathmandu, Nepal. There are other popular items from Nepal like Wooden/Brass Baghchal boards, Buddha statue from Lumbini, Mt. Everest souvenir, Pokhara scenery, Himalaya Range Scenery souvenir that'd be great gift to anyone who knows or somehow heard about Nepal :)

Hope you could win one :)

Hackers are magpies; we like shiny things.

In lieu of that though, how about about PC parts? A sweet GPU/mobo/PSU would be awesome.

Mechanical keyboards; good earphones etc.

I want a 3D printer, as a Prize.