Gold, It’s So ….. Golden!

So how do I make gold? I’ve been asked that question many times, even though I’m no guru like say, Marko or Gevlon. I’ve never been gold-capped, in fact I’ve never had more than 35K at any given time. Questions arise though, when you can put up a Mechano Hog and 6K in gold for a guild party/contest, or buy a Battered Hilt, epic flying and make a Hog all in the same day. So this post is all about how I make my gold. But first a few testimonials!

“I read Zaph’s methods for making gold, and if I didn’t know better, it almost sounds like he knows what he’s talking about! But I do know better, so there you go.” – Goldie

“I used to beg for gold in Org, and then I read Zaph’s post on gold. Now? I’m still begging for gold because I enjoy pestering people who aren’t losers like me.” – Plzplzplz

“And I always thought he just sold all those pants he ninja’d! Go figure!” – Leggardless

So anyway ….

First things first, add-ons. Gots-to-have-da-add-ons. Auctioneer and/or Auctionator. Personally, I like using them both. They’re both at your favorite add-on portal, I use curse. After you have them installed here’s what you do:

Run a scan. Open up the AH window and on your browse tab, at the top of the window a little to the left will be a double arrow button in blue. Click that and you’ll get a warning message that you may crash your ‘puter, lose your connection and possibly lose all hope of ever becoming a Wal-Mart greeter. Click that message away and that double arrow has turned yellow. Click it again and you’re scanning! It takes a couple of minutes and there’s a progress bar at the top of the window. When it’s done, that’s when you:

Start searching! Click the tab at the bottom that says “Search”. Then click on “Searchers”, which gives you options on how to search. Let’s start with “Vendor”. First, input what profit margin you’re looking for. I use 50 silver. Then hit “search”. It will pull up for you all the items on the AH that are selling for LESS than what you can sell it to any vendor for. There aren’t a lot of items there at any given time, but when there is something, it’s just a walk to the mailbox and then to a vendor and you made a little something.

Now let’s try that searcher called “Resale”. Click that one and then input your minimum profit and maximum that you want to pay for any one listing. I use 25 gold profit and 9999 gold max price. Click search and a whole lot more items will be found than when you used Vendor. It’ll tell you the bid and buyout prices, if it’s stackable, how many in the stack, suggest to either bid or buy, and even tell you the expected profit. Now here is where care is needed. You’ll notice that as you mouse-over an item a good amount of info is provided. One of the things you want to see is “Sold by no known merchants”. Sometimes you’ll see “Sold by 3 merchants” or “Sold by 1574 merchants” and that is because someone bought it from a vendor and is trying to make some gold off of people who don’t know better. Another thing to look for is “Seen”. “Seen 51 times” or “Seen 4242 times”. The more times you scan, the more reliable that info is. If your scans have only seen something once, chances are good you don’t want it. Seen it 536 times? It’ll probably sell! Another thing to watch out for is …. Well here’s an example: You see a pair of pants (that Zaph hasn’t gotten to yet) and it says it should net you a profit of 546 gold. Looks attractive, but on closer inspection you see that it is sold by 3 vendors and only requires level 7. How can that be? Someone bought it and posted it at outrageous prices repeatedly, knowing it wouldn’t sell, but then later posts it a much lower price so that the resale flippers will see that huge profit number and buy it without thinking about it.

My advice is, in the beginning stick to what you know. For instance, is there a blacksmith in the house? Hey, Rax! As a blacksmith you know that the Savage Saronite gear is not vendor sold. You also know what it takes to produce it, hence can determine if it’s worth re-selling. And there are times when you’ll see a lot of them because someone was leveling up their blacksmith and didn’t have an enchanter to DE them, so they just threw them on the AH to re-coup something, even if it is just 25 gold. In that case I buy them all and post them 1 at a time. As time goes by you’ll get to know just how many different items there are in the game and which ones to pick up and sell.

The next type of searcher I use is “Snatch”. This is what you use when you want specific things and are always looking to pick them up on the cheap. For instance, my Leatherworker makes Drums of the Wild and Drums of Forgotten Kings. So to make those I need Heavy Borean Leather, Icy Dragonscale, and Jormungar Scales. I have all three of those items on my snatch list. I plug in what price I want to buy an item for, or at what percentage of market price and scan. I have most of my items set at 70% of market price. When I hit search it searches just for what’s on my list at the prices I set or lower. Then I either bid or buy. I also have titanium bars and eternal fire on my snatch list. That reminds me ….

Eternal fire. An eternal fire sells for less than 10 crystallized fire. Hmm. Buy eternal fires, convert them and sell the crystallized fire for profit. It works and they’re easy to store! There are other items in the game that work similarly, you’ll find them. There’s even a searcher called “Converter” that finds those sorts of thing for you. Remember the motes in Outland? There is a market for those, too. People are always leveling up toons, whether they’re new to the game of if they’re alts. Leveling professions from beginning to cap will always produce a market and that is why mats always sell faster than gear.

So I’ve rambled on enough now about how to go about building up an inventory of items to sell for profit. The next post will focus on how and when to sell, with a liberal dose of un-focused rambling for spice, I’m sure.