Learn Glyph of Frost Armor

Glyph of Frost Armor

As I mentioned in a previous post on Glyph Changes In Patch 4.1, with the release of Patch 4.1 there would be one new glyph introduced to the Inscription Profession.  Scribes can now craft the Glyph of Frost Armor, a new glyph for the mage class.  It was unknown how the glyph would be learned once it became available. 


Quickly after the release of Patch 4.1, I learned that it was available from Northrend Inscription Research, which is just one of the possible options.  Scribes can also learn new recipes from Book of Glyph Mastery, Minor Inscription Research (but obviously minor glyphs only), or from the Inscription profession trainer.  Lucky for scribes it was one of the cheaper options.  Had it been learned from a Book of Glyph Mastery, it would have cost scribes far more in gold due to the scarcity and high demand that already exists for the Books of Glyph Mastery.   

Northrend Inscription Research and Snowfall Ink

The Northrend Inscription Research profession ability requires a Snowfall Ink, which may not be available on the auction house for your server.  There may exist a market for selling the Snowfall Inks for a super slight window of opportunity as all scribes will need at least 1 to learn the new Glyph of Frost Armor.  You can always get one from trading in 10 Snowfall Inks to Jessica Sellers or the newly added Ink Traders.

Enchant Shield - Vitality | New BiS Shield Enchant

Enchant Shield Vitality

One of the Undocumented Patch 4.1 Changes To Enchanting has been revealed on live World of Warcraft servers.  Previously I mentioned how the + mana per second and + health per second enchants were being changed. 

Well there is a new Best in Slot enchant for level 19 sword and board flag runners.  The Enchant Shield - Vitality has changed to now provide +10 Stamina and +10 Spirit, which is better than the previous +7 Stamina - Greater Stamina enchant and the +7 Spirit - Greater Spirit enchant combined.  The materials for the Enchant Shield - Vitality enchantment do require 1 Greater Eternal Essense and 4 Illusion Dust, but those can be obtained through the shuffling of Runecloth Headbands or Enchanted Thorium Blades.

If you have low level twinks on your server, then be sure to make a few of these and keep the auction house stocked.  I am the only one selling these on my server and I am selling them for 75 gold each.  Nice thing is that there were a lot of these on the acution house mispriced by auto posters.  I bought them for 2 gold each and am flipping for a nice profit on the auction house now as the crafting cost is much higher than 2 gold! 

So be sure to check your WoW server's auction house first and grab up what you can before everyone realizes this massive increase in value. 

Have you found any other odd ball changes that have been bringing you sales?

Flipping Winterspring Cub Vanity Pets

Winterspring Cub

The Winterspring Cub

Patch 4.1 has brought us another non-bound companion pet that can be sold for a nice profit.  The Winterspring Cub is a cute little frostsaber cub that will costs you 50 gold from the vendor, but can be sold on the auction house for a lot more.  Most players have no clue where to get this new companion pet, the Winterspring Cub.  So all you need to do to expand your pet shop business is to buy a few from the vendor in Winterspring and post them on the auction house in World of Warcraft.  I myself am the only seller on my server - Horde side - that is selling these pets.  I pay 50 gold for them just like anyone else, but I am selling them on the Horde auction house for 420 gold each.  Yes, they are selling for that much!

Winterspring Cub is sold by Michelle De Rum, a neutral vendor located inside the Everlook Inn in Everlook, Winterspring.  The Winterspring Cub will cost you 50g per companion pet.  Be carefull trying to sell too many at once, because with a 50 gold purchase price, the auction fees can add up, if they don't sell.

The npc vendor Michelle De Rum is actually a tribute to an amazing WoW screenshot artist and pet collector name DDrum, whose first name happens to be Michelle.  Check out her awesome screenshot gallery of biscuit-fed (and enlarged) companion pets with matching screenshot backgrounds.

Speaking of selling companion pets, be sure to check out the new gold guide by The Gold Queen.

Click here to visit The Gold Queen.
(Disclosure: Affiliate link -  Supporting TGQ helps support this site as well.)

Cataclysm Potion Making Alchemy

Alchemy Potion Master

Alchemy

I have been playing in the potion market on my server after taking my second Alchemist to swap alchemy specializations to potion master.  Early into the release of Cataclysm, there was no profit to be made in either the flask or potion markets.  Now a few patches later, the requirements to craft are less steep and the price of most Cataclysm herbs has come down to a level that we can profit from in markets other than just Mysterious Fortune Cards.

Daily Dungeon Changes

Historically, the best nights to sell potions are on raid nights, but some new changes to World of Warcraft have been brought about in Patch 4.1.  We may be seeing an increased window of opportunity to sell flasks and potions as you no longer have to do your daily dungeon run each day.  With Patch 4.1 we are now able to do 7 runs a week for full Justice Points instead of being tied to doing only one per day.  So Tuesdays and Wednesdays both should see increased consumable sales as players stock up for multiple dungeon runs back to back.

Potions That Sell

Here are some of the potions that I have found to be viable sellers.

1. Potion of Deepholme
2. Potion of Treasure Finding
3. Potion of Concentration
4. Mythical Mana Potion
5. Mysterious Mana Potion
6. Potion of Tol'vir
7. Golemblood Potion
8. Volcanic Potion

Any others to add to this list?

Image Credit: alchemipedia.blogspot.com

Guide to WoW Patch 4.1 | Gold Making Posts on Patch 4.1

Patch 4.1 Incoming

Well by now the US World of Warcraft servers should be down and undergoing the maintenance to bring us Patch 4.1 and the new content of Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub as well as many new changes.  With these changes come new opportunities for us to make gold on the auction house in WoW.  Let's take a look back at the posts I have written over the past month or so to get caught back up on how we can prosper in this time of change.

Patch 4.1 Gold Making Posts

1. Companion Pets To Spike in Patch 4.1
2. Lantern and Lamp Trading Will Be More Feasible
3. Call to Arms and the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries
4. Are the Gem Vendor Prices Really Changing?  Find out when the servers go live!
5. Patch 4.1 Undocumented Changes to Twink Enchanting
6. Glyph Changes in Patch 4.1
7. The WoW Ore and Herb Markets are in Flux
8. WoW Tanking Gear Demand Increase with Call to Arms

Well there you go.  That should get you caught up on some of the big money makers in WoW Patch 4.1.  Hope you were prepared.

And if that isn't enough to keep you busy while you wait for the Patch 4.1 to finish, then be sure to head over to AuctionHouseJunkies.com as Episode #7 has just been released.

Check out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Guide

Embersilk Farming In Deepholme In Cataclysm

Embersilk Cloth Farming in Deepholme

Leveling My Enchanter / Tailor

I am making a push to level 84 on my tailor who is also my enchanter.  Right now she stands at character level 83.75 and I soon will be able to visit the Twilight Highlands vendors for both Enchanting and Tailoring.  There will be a wave of sales in the Enchanting market as players will be replacing gear with the release of new content.  I need to hit level 84 before Patch 4.1.

Major patches always bring in a larger number of players and sales across many markets will peak during at least the first week.  So this is why I have been pushing hard for level 84.  I want to take advantage of the gear replacement, re-enchanting, re-gemming craze to the fullest.  By getting my enchanter to the Level 84 where she can buy the high end patterns, prior to the Patch 4.1, is a must in order to accomplish this. 

Embersilk Farming in SW Deepholme

In Southwestern Deepholme is a nice spot to grind and farm Embersilk Cloth.  There is a great battle taking place  between the dwarves and troggs.  These Earthen Chapions and War Constructs will fight on your side attacking the enemy Stone Trogg Beserkers and Stone Trogg Geomancers.  You can get a lot of experience, if you come here while leveling at level 82, once Deepholme unlocks.  Since the dwarfs will acts as tanks, this location is very nice for herding and farming the mobs together and finishing them off with AoE spell damage.  you can even run around and loot all of the Embersilk Cloth during the battle. 

So I have been using my warlock tailor and have been gathering hefty amounts of Embersilk Cloth to also level with tailoring skill at the same time.  Instead of just mindlessly following the quests for gear that will be replaced from anything that drops in a dungeon, I have been farming the hell out of these Stone Troggs all up and down the SW perimeter of Deepholme.  Bolting up what I collect, looting, spamming DoTs on mobs everywhere, while continuing to be in combat.    The more damage you do to these mobs, the more experience you will earn for the kills.  As long as you do some damage, you will be able to loot them.  It really is a great spot to level and farm Embersilk Cloth at the same time.  And it is also a great spot to pickpocket as well.  Bring along a potion of treasure finding for a nice bonus.

You May Also Like: Farming Embersilk Cloth On The Shadow Wardens Quests

Anyone else pushing their profession crafting character to level 84 before Patch 4.1?

Noblegarden Begins | Newsletter Giveaway

Noblegarden

Well the World of Warcraft in-game world event Noblegarden has begun.  Time to run around crapping eggs and turning each other into rabbits.  Not much to make gold during this holiday other than:

• Selling ports as a mage.  The event takes you all over the globe, so mages can make some quick gold in the first few days of the Noblegarden event.
• Flying lowbies to the harder to reach areas that are required to visit, like UnGoro Crater.  So dust off your X-53 Touring Rocket mount and fly some lowbies to their destinations.  Or drop them into pools of lava.  That's always fun.

Gold Tips Newsletter

If you haven't already, be sure to sign up for my Free Gold Tips Newsletter to be delivered to your email inbox daily!  If you sign up, don't forget to click the confirmation email and add me address to your safe list to keep the emails from ending up in your junk box.  The readers on the newsletter will be able to purchase my Mysterious Fortune Card Gold Making Guide before everyone else and for a discounted rate. The guide is in the final stages of design, so be sure to sign up for your discount and the chance to own it before anyone else.  Already a member?  Tell a Friend to Join too!

I will also be giving away a free copy on release date to one lucky member of the Gold Tips Newsletter.

Undocumented Enchanting Changes In Patch 4.1

Balancing Twink Battlegrounds

Many of these undocumented changes will be effecting twinks characters and PvP battlegrounds, so if you are a supplier of twink items and enchants, then this is very useful information to know.

This information is taken from this Patch 4.1 Undocumented Changes source over at Twinkinfo.com.  These changes have been tested and noted by players on the PTR.  Twinkinfo.com is a reliable and trusted source and is a must read for anyone looking to get into twinking of lower level characters.  Hopefully these changes will encourage more players to try out twinking for lower levels.

Changes To Enchanting

Enchants that previously required only an item level of 35 or higher, will now require a character level of 25 also.  So Burning Crusade enchants will no longer be allowed on level 1-24 items.  This makes twinking with items like the Formal Dangui or Haliscon Jacket impossible.  Players used to be able to add the +35 Resilience enchant onto these items.  Imagine an extra 35 resilience in a lvl 10 battleground. Not anymore.

The level 60 enchants from Wrath of the Lich King will now require character level 50 to use.  This prevents level 49 characters from using Wrath enchants.

The Mana per 5 seconds enchants will become +Spirit enchants.

The Health per 5 seconds enchants will become +Stamina enchants.

What does this mean for us?


If you are on a server with high twink activity, you are going to be able to sell some new enchants once Patch 4.1 comes.  Players with twinks that had previously been able to use these Grandfathered enchants will now be looking to replace their enchants with the next best available enchant.

So once Patch 4.1 comes, you should see a slight spike in +4 Stats to Chest (originally said +4 sta, lol - thanks for catching the type) and any other top of the line replacement enchants.

Image Credit: http://kara.allthingsd.com

Changing Alchemy Specialization In Cataclysm

Alchemy Specialization Changing

With the drop in prices of Cataclysm herbs in World of Warcraft, the potion and flask markets have the opportunity to be much more profitable.  I myself changed one of my alchemists from transmutation specialization to potion master just yesterday.  One thing has changed.  There no longer is the Alchemy specialization swapping npc in Shattrath.  There used to be an npc in Shatt that you would pay the150g and then pick which specialty branch of alchemy you want to change to.  He's gone.  It's a lot more tedious now.

In order to change your Alchemy specialty choice, you have to go to the trainer of the original specialization and pay your 150g to unlearn.  Then you have to travel across Outlands to the trainer of the new specialty to train the new specialization.  It was so much easier when you could just find your way to Shattrath, pay your gold and then chose your new speciality.

So my druid had to fly to Stormspire to pay the 150g to unlearn transmutation spec from the transmutation trainer, then fly to Cenarian Refuge in Zangarmarsh to be trained in potions by the potion master there.

So don't waste your time flying to Shatt to swap out your specialities in Alchemy.

Potion of Concentration | Making Gold With Alchemy

Potion of Concentration

Looking for a way to make some World of Warcraft gold with the Alchemy profession?  Most professional alchemists tend to focus on the transmutation specialization for the chances of getting extra Truegold or bonus Volatile Elements from the Living Elements transmutation.  The Potion of Concentration helps to make an arguement for having at least one alchemist specializing in Potion Mastery.  Potion of Treasure Finding is a great potion to have in your alchemist's gold making arsenal, but the Potion of Concentration may be even more profitable for you, especially if you have a large raiding population on your server.

The Potion of Concentration is almost a must for raid casters, DPS classes as well as healing classes.  With the length of raid encounters and the mana issues caused by the WoW Cataclysm changes, running out of mana is a serious concern, especially in the Cataclysm raid environment.  With the Cataclysm herb prices dropping due to the botting shift to herb farming, the cost to craft these potions is getting cheaper.  The Potion of Concentration only requires 2 Ashara's Veil.  So a single stack of the Cataclsym herb Azshara's Veil will be enough to craft 10 potions.  If you are a potion specialist alchemsit, then you could get some free potions to further increase your gold profits from a single stack. 

I've heard some raid casters discussing always have at least 1 full stack of the Potion of Concentration, along with Mythical Mana Potions, as part of their raiding requirements.  So there definately is a market for the potions, especially on raid nights.  As with any raiding consumeable, always try to post them an hour before your server's standard raid times so raiders can be fully stocked and ready to go once the raiding roll call begins.  As reported by Avalonna of Tales of A Priest, these do benefit from the epic Alchemist's Stone 40% increased effect allowing for up to 30,800 mana to be returned to the potion imbiber.

Anyone having success moving the Potion of Concentration on your server's auction house?  Got any tips for selling these?

Supplying Low Level Characters

Have You Forgotten About The Needs Of Low Level Characters?

Often we are stuck into our routines crafting high end products like belt buckles, flasks, elixirs, high end BOE gear, gems, and enchants.  Well, if you are too focused on just supplying the high level characters in World of Warcraft, then you are omitting some of the profitable markets that cater to the lower level players. 

Often the lower level characters are not brand new players.  They often are ran by experienced players who are just seeking a new experience or are a fresh alt working on leveling in Warcraft to add to their list of professions that they have under their belt.  We as gold bloggers often preach about diverisification in your ability to craft within multiple professions.  Some of the these low level characters are products of theat philosophy.  They may be played by an experienced World of Warcraft player who has gold to burn.  These types of players often look to "pimp out" their alt characters with the best gear to help ease the often painful process of leveling yet another character.  Having the best gear means quicker leveling and a faster rise to the requried level needed for maximizing the profession crafting ability. 

Other players like to make an actual "twink" character for lower level PvP brackets.  If you are on a server (or battlegroup) with heavy low level PvP activity, then you have some very nice options for expanding your ability to profit from lower level World of Warcraft characters.

Low Level Niches

Level 14-15 Shields

Once a player hits level 15, they will have the option to join the Random Dungeon Finder to run dungeons.  We all know that tanks have the shortest wait times to enter the random dungeons, so low level warriors and paladins will be looking for some tank gear once around level 15.  At super low levels it isn't that important to have tank quality gear, but a lot of players will head straight to the auction house to look for a good one handed weapon and a good shield.  Many times this market is completely barren on many servers.  Any low level 14-16 shields are a good option for selling on the auction house.  You can snatch up cheap priced green shields and mark them up for a profit.  Anytime you find a low level shield while questing or runnnig dungeons, save it.  Post it on the auction house and watch it sell to a player wanting to start tanking.

Level 40 Mail and Plate

At level 40 there are some important gear change overs for many classes.  Warriors and Paladins switch from using mail armor and can now use plate armor.  Shamans and Hunters get to upgrade from wearing leather armor to wearing mail armor.  This is a good market to supply as again there isn't always a nice selection of mail and plate on the auction house around level 40.  Mail items from level 38-42 have always been good movers on the World of Warcraft auction houses for low level players looking for gear upgrades.  Some players will go straight to the auction house once they hit that magic level of 40 just to swap out every piece of gear they have.  You want to be the one selling to these new players.  Unlike with level 14-16 shields, you can craft the plate and mail items that they will be looking to purchase from the auction house in WoW. 

Netherweave Bags

The Netherweave Bag has long been the standard for equipping any low level characters bank and bag slots.  These continue to move at a great volume on a daily basis as there are always going to be new characters created.  This is a staple market for tailoring and is often a great market for any brand new players aspiring to be greedy goblins like the rest of us.  So if you are new to gold making, this is an excellent starter market to learn the basics of buying supplies from the auction house and turning them into profitable products to sell on the auction house.  This is also another great market to get into to understand how the overnight market will earn you lots of sales on the auction house while you aren't even logged in.

Low Level Blue Gear

Even from my early days as a gorilla hunting noob, I saw the value of crafting and selling blue items like Barbaric Bracers.  Spidersilk Boots, Spidersilk Drape, Toughened Leather Gloves, and many others can be sold to twink characters and those players with extra gold looking to "pimp out" their alts.

BoA Enchants

Some low level characters will be fortunate enough to receive some BoA heirloom gear from the other higher level characters on their account.  These BoA heirlooms will be best used with some of the best enchants available to put onto these items.  Have you forgotten to dust off your enchanting rods and get to work supplying enchants for BoA heirlooms?  Again, if you have a nice twink population on your server this market is an excellent one.  Many of the best enchants for BoA heirloom items are also highly sought after by twink characters, so you may be supplying two seperate markets with the same items.  Cha-Ching!

So try not to get stuck into the same old rut of supplying only the high level characters in World of Warcraft.  You may be overlooking some nice markets that could help you to diversify your gold making tactics and help those streams of gold turn to rivers of revenue!

Call To Arms and Selling Tanking Gear

Tanks, But No Tanks

Call To Arms

With the Call To Arms feature being added in the coming Patch 4.1, we should see an increase in demand for level 85 tanking gear.  The Call To Arms feature will only apply to Heroic Dungeons upon first release with Patch 4.1.  There will be previously experienced tanks looking to up their average item level to qualify for the Heroic Dungeons.  Others experienced tanks will be looking to increase their average item level to qualify for the new 5 man Heroic Dungeons, Zul'Aman and Zul'Gurub.  The biggest push should be from DPS players with no tanknig gear, looking to build a tanking set to take advantage of the Call to Arms dungeon feature and try for the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries.

All types of BOE tanking gear should see increased sales.  Even some of the level 80-84 tanking gear could sell better as leveling characters make the switch to tanking while they level up.  Well, we can hope that the new wave of tanks will be smart enough to try it out ahead of running Heroics.

What Gear To Sell

Some of the items that should be more profitable after the patch and the increased demand for tank gear are listed below.  Start thinking in crafting or flipping tank gear as the Call to Arms should increase the need for these items.

• Elementium Moebius Band - Jewelcrafter Crafted
• Elementium Guardian - Jewelcrafter Crafted
• Gems For Tanking (+Dodge, +Stamina, +Parry, +Mastery) - Jewelcrafter Crafted
• Tanking Enchants - Enchanter Crafted
• Tanking Flasks and Elixirs - Alchemist Crafted
• Hardened Elementium Girdle - Blacksmith Crafted
• Hardened Elementium Hauberk - Blacksmith Crafted
• Elementium Earthguard - Blacksmith Crafted
• Weapon Chains & Shield Spikes - Blacksmith Crafted
• Rock Furrow Boots - (BOE) Valor Points
• Darkmoon Card: Earthquake & Darkmoon Earthquake Deck - Scribe Crafted
• BOE Tank Gear - World, Dungeon, and Raid Drops
• Cloak of War - Leatherworker Crafted
• Twilight Dragonscale Cloak - Leatherworker Crafted

Image Credit: http://www.zazzle.com/meat_shield_postcard-239061268059809778

WoW Herb and Ore Markets In Flux

Herbs Are Down and Ores Are Up

With the scare of the coming change to the vendorable price of the cut uncommon Cataclysm gems, many of the botters have already switched away from the bot farming of Obsidium Ore.  A lot of servers are already seeing a shortage of Obsidium Ore as well as a flooding of herbs on the Auction House.  It is obvious that the botters have switched from farming Obsidium Ore.  Some have even gone to gathering Elementium Ore, while the majority have switched to the bot farming of herbs.

Obsidium Ore is even on shortage and selling for a higher rate due to the lack of supply.  Herbs of all kinds are dropping in price as the markets are getting flooded.  Expect this to only get worse once Patch 4.1 drops if it includes the data-mined change to the prices of cut gems.

What Does This Mean?

Some players are in a frantic rush to prospect their Obsidium Ores, cut the uncommon gems, and vendor them for 9g each before the price could drop to 75 silver each.  Instead of dumping your ores to the vendor via gems, you might be better off selling the stacks on the auction house now that the prices has risen.

As far as herbs go, liquidate any products you have ASAP that were created from herb derived materials.  The value is going to plummet as other players start to be able to get herbs for far cheaper and in much larger supplies than prior to the big botting switch overs.  Mysterious Fortune Cards, Adventurer's Journals, Glyphs, Potions, Flasks & Elixirs are all going to tank, so dump all that you have pre-crafted before you are unable to sell them for close to what costs you already have sunk into them.  You will be able to craft these all for much cheaper than previously due to the flood of herbs.

JMTC Weekly Meeting Appearance

JMTC Weekly Meeting



Mageshadow and the gang host a weekly meeting every Friday night on Teamspeak 3. I have been unable to make previous meetings partly from real life and partly from stupidity. I finally realized why I couldn't get the install to work properly. I was trying to install the Win64 download for a Win32 system. Oops!
 Anyways, I was in attendance at this week's meeting. I highly recommend listening to the recordings as there are some great tips, ideas, and discussions mentioned each week. It isn't a podcast, but is more of a round table discussion where questions are asked or topics are given and then they are freely discussed by various knowledgable gold makers.



Here's the link if you want to check out the latest meeting (episode #16).

We discussed all sorts of topics including glyphs, books of glyph mastery, fortune cards, ore and herb prices, professions, and tons of other great gold making ideas and strategies!

LF Mysterious Fortune Card Testimonials | Reader Giveaway

Mysterious Fortune Card Master

As some of you know, I have often been referred to as the "Grandfather of Mysterious Fortune Cards" or the "Fortune Card Guru".  My posts on Mysterious Fortune Cards, Mysterious Fortune Card Barking, Barking Add-Ons, and Dealing With Your Mysterious Fortune Card Competition have been some of the most popular and wide spread posts I have ever released.  So it is only natural that I work up a complete guide to selling fortune cards. 

I am proud to announce that I have aleady begun the initial stages of developing this e-book on Mastering Mysterious Fortune Cards.  This will be a very inexpensive supplemental guide that will go over every aspect of the Mysterious Fortune Card market and in much greater detail than all of my previous Mysterious Fortune Card posts combined, even better my MFC breakdown on episode #1 of Auction House Junkies.  It truly will be an amazing guide that will teach players how to get rich off of a single profession, Inscription, via the wheeling and dealing in this amazingly profitable market.

Call For MFC Testimonials

So what I am asking of my readers is this.  I would like to add some testimonials from my wonderful readers.  Testimonials from other players that have used my tactics for selling Mysterious Fortune Cards.  I have helped a lot of your through my posts here at Cold's Gold Factory, the Auction House Junkies Podcast, and have tailored some assistance to specific players via email and twitter - @SSmith0911.

So I have helped you out, now I am asking you to return the favor and help me out as well.  Please leave some comments on this post as testimonials of how my Mysterious Fortune Cards strategies, guides, hints, and tips have helped you out.  Any testimonials left may be used in the guide and / or the sales page for the coming guide.  I hope to have the Mysterious Fortune Card gold making guide finished by the end of the month.

Reader Giveaway

One person who leaves an excellent testimonial will have their testimonial included in the guide and that reader will be awarded a free copy of the Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery guide once it is completed.  And even if you are already making nice profits in gold, the new MFC guide will still be useful for you as I am adding new strategies that I haven't even discussed on the site.  So stay tuned and please leave some helpful comments that I can use. 

Thanks in advance!

Cold

Join the Blogroll & Podcast Links

Spring Cleaning

I have deleted 12 or more blogs from my blogroll that had not posted in a week or longer.  Some hadn't posted in 3 months.  I like to keep links only to blogs that are current and are providing fresh content at least once per week.  Blogging is a revolving door.  Many start, but few continue on past a few months before giving up after they realize how much hard work it is to post quality content on a consistent basis.

New Additions

Anyone who has a new site that writes frequently (at least once a week) can contact me to be added to the blogroll. 

I have also added a Podcast List after the blogroll.  Anyone with a WoW related podcast who links to the Auction House Junkies homepage at AuctionHouseJunkies.com can contact me to be added to the Podcast List. 

Consortium Contest

The Consortium Forums are hosting a new contest.  If you are interested, follow this link for the details and prizes.

*******************

More gold tips and gold guides coming soon.

Thanks for coming to my site and reading my blog. And thanks for all of the positive feedback I receive for the blog as well as the podcast.  I think I have some of the best readers and comments across the whole World of Warcraft gold blogging community.



Disenchanting For Profit | Illusion Dust and GEEs

Illusion Dust and Greater Eternal Essences

As I have written about previously, on many servers there is a shortage of Greater Eternal Essences and Illusion Dust.  Both of these Enchanting materials sell very well and for high amounts of gold on my server.  Previously I have done guides on crafting and disenchanting Enchanted Thorium Blades as well as shuffling surplus Runecloth to create Greater Eternal Essences and Illusion Dust.  Today I guide you into another option for turning a golden profit selling these high demand Enchanting materials. 

Disenchanting For Profit

A great option for Enchanters to make gold is through the use of their Disenchanting ability.  I've guided you through crafting Runecloth Headbands and Enchanted Thorium Blades for the sole purpose of disenchanting to get the materials to sell on the auction house.  However, you can also look no further than your local auction house for items to also disenchant.  Here's an easy way to make some gold as an Enchanter.  When you mouse over items not only can you see the market value of items, but you should also be able to see what that item can disenchant into and the chances of each of the possible results.  All you need to do to find items worth disenchanting is to mouse over the various items in the level range that can produce what you are looking for and if the price is right, buy them out.

Step By Step Guide
1. Open the auction house interface using any of the common core add-ons like Auctioneer.
2. In the auction house search categories choose the armor tab.
3. Set the character level range to 51 - 60.  (The item level is 56-65, but the character level is 51-60 for item that disenchant into GEEs and Illusion Dust.)
4. Hit search.
5. Mouse over the items along the left side of the results until you find something that will disenchant into what you are looking for.
6. Look at the price and determine if it is low enough to be profitable.
7. If so, buy it out and continue looking for more.
8. Once finished, collect the items from the mailbox.
9. Disenchant the items and post the resulting materials onto the auction house for a nice gold profit.

NOTE:  It is important to choose the correct items because there are Outlands dropped items that are at the higher end of the level range that will only disenchant into Outlands Enchanting material.  Be sure to check that you are buying items from Azeroth drops.

You Can Haz Golds Too

This tactic can work for any enchanting material that you are looking for on the auction house.  Often times you can buy the items and disenchant for the materials you need at a a fraction of the price of buying the materials straight from the auction house.  I paid 6 gold for the item in the picture above.  GEES are going for 35-45 gold each and Illusion Dust is 9-15 gold each.  Even if disenchanting produced a Large Brilliant Shard, those sell for over 6g each.  So of course I bought the item pictured and sold the resulted enchanting materials for a nice profit of gold.

This is an easy market to enter.  As long as you have a high enough level enchanting skill to disenchant the items, you can pick and choose what you buy to maximize your chances at turning a nice profit too.

Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnival May Topic

Cold's Gold Factory Gold Blogging Carnival

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals: May 11th Topic

These blogging carnivals are excellent resources for our readers to get some excellent nuggets of knowledge all in one place. They are also excellent tools for bloggers to get recognized and start to drive traffic from our sites to yours. I highly recommend participating in these blogging carnivals as your submission's will tend to be some of the most visited content on your site. Be sure to read about the benefits of blogging carnivals, if you are undecided about participating in Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival.

What Is a Blogging Carnival?

A blogging carnival is a compilation of blog posts all created around one specific topic, which is chosen by the host site. Entries into the carnival are submitted to the host. The host then organizes the posts into one big post with links back to the original articles on the participating author's sites.

Rules for Cold's Gold Factory Blogging Carnivals

• Create the entire post on your own site.
• Send me an email with a link to your post. SSmith0911 (at) live (dot) com
• Submissions must be in by the 10th of each month.
• All carnivals will go live on Cold's Gold Factory on the 11th of each month.
• All World of Warcraft bloggers are invited to participate. You don't have to author a gold making blog, but you need to follow the set topic.

Each post written for the carnival should begin with a link with the anchor text "Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival" and link to http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/p/colds-gold-blogging-carnivals.html

Learn more about the importance of proper anchor text here. Linking to the above page with the proper anchor text in each carnival entry will help to drive traffic to the gold blogging carnival and in turn drive more traffic to your entries.

May 11th Topic

Add-On Spotlight:  Which supplimentary add-on would you recommend that all auctioneers should use and why?  (Do not use a Core Add-On)

So any non-core add-on will work.  Do not use a Core add-on like Tradeskill Master, Auctioneer, Auctionator, etc.  An example would be the AnnounceIt Add-On for barking assistance that I have previously written about.  Try to spotlight an add-on that other players may not have heard about or may have never used.  I highly recommend participating in this blogging carnival as this topic will probably be revisited by new readers and will continue to bring you traffic to your site long after the carnival is over.

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Previous Blogging Carnivals

Be sure to check out previous blogging carnivals here at Cold's Gold Factory.

January 2011: What Is Your Favorite Farming Spot In Cataclysm

February 2011: What 3 Pieces Of Advise Would You Give A Little Goblin? (3 Top Tips For New Auctioneers?)

March 2011 Topic:  Humble Beginnings and Defining Moments

April 2011 Topic:  Favorite Items To Sell Cross-Faction

6 Uses For Cheap Obsidium and Elementium Ore

Obsidium and Elementium Ores


Just last week we were informed of the data-mined information from MMO-Champion showing the prices dropping to 75 silver for cut uncommon gems.  The World of Warcraft blogging community has been writing heavily about this potential change.  Many players have started to process their ore and sell their gems.  Others are starting to dump their obsidium and elementium ores due to the sheer volume of their stockpiles.  Jewelcrafters that normally would buy up all the ore that they could find under the floor prices have stopped buying.  Players simply have a ton of stock of ores that they need to move through without buying anymore that they may get stuck with after the potential change goes live.  Less ore is selling, so the auction house is flooded with ore from bots that are still out farming elementium ore and obsidium ore.  The prices are dropping far.  What does that mean for you?  This is a buyers market.

Options for Obsidium Ore and Elementium Ore

With prices dropping lower than they previously have been, you can safely buy up both ores and process them to make a nice profit.  Here are a few options that you can use to make a profit off of the low priced ores.

1. Continue The Obsidium Shuffle - The obsidium shuffle still works.  You currently can still vendor your cut uncommon gems to a vendor for the full price of 9g each.  You can still buy out this cheap ore and process it like always.  Just stay away from buying more than you can use.
2. Smelt Obsidium Ore to Obsidium Bars - The prices of ore and bars should be directly related and rise and drop together.  The truth is that they don't on all servers.  Although these markets are directly related, the prices don't directly follow one another.  You might be able to make a profit converting the ores into bars and selling them as just obsidium bars.
3. Convert Obsidium Bars to Folded Obsidium - Similarly, the price of folded obsidium is often higher that the cost of 2 bars (or 4 ores), which is all it takes for a Blacksmith to create Folded Obsidium.  These are used in Blacksmithing recipes to craft weapons and armor.
4. Smelt Elementium Ore to Elementium Bars - See #2 above.  Elementium works the same as obsidium.
5. Convert Elementium Bars to Hardened Elementium Bars - Each Hardened Elementium Bar requires 10 Elementium Bars and 4 Volatile Earth to create 1 bar.  Miners can combined these materials and smelt a product that can sell for much higher than the parts.  1 stack (20) of Elementium will smelt into the 10 bars needed, so to see if this will be profitable for you, just check the prices on the auction house.  If 1 stack of Elementium Ore + 4 Volatile Earth costs less than the market price of 1 Hardened Elementium Bar, then there is profit to be made with your miner.  These bars are required by blacksmiths and are used as currency to purchase high end recipes from the Blacksmithing Metal Traders in Twilight Highlands.
6. Cogwheel Exchange - If you have an Engineer, you can make some cheap Obsidium Bolts to swap with the Engineering Vendor in Twilight Highlands as well.  The Obsidium Bolts can be converted to engineering cogwheels.

If these are new markets that you are going to try out, then be sure to test the waters lightly before jumping in and investing a lot of gold.  Start small and see if there is profit to be made on your Warcraft server.

Cross Faction Trading (Arbitrage) | Cold's WoW Gold Blogging Carnival -April Edition

Cold's Gold Blogging Carnival

Welcome to the April edition of Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals. These carnivals will continue to take place the 11th day of every month and will be hosted here at Cold's Gold Factory. All World of Warcraft bloggers are welcome to participate and feedback both here and on the original authors' sites is strongly encouraged. So show some support and please leave some feedback in the comments section. These bloggers put a lot of time and hard work into these blogging carnival posts so please let them know what you think of their blogging carnival entries.
If you would like to be included in the next month's carnival, please review the guidelines for Cold's Gold Blogging Carnivals and submit your link via email (ssmith0911 at live dot com) before the 10th of the month. Read up on the benefits of blogging carnival participation at my other blog designed to help new bloggers, Blogging Vitals. Articles are listed in the order they are received. Thank you to all the bloggers participating in this months carnival! And without further ado, I present to you this month's participants answering the question:

What are your favorite items to transfer to the other faction for sales?

Here this month we have a nice collections of tips for helping to take your WoW gold making to another level.  If you are new to the auction house game or are just curious about getting started be sure to listen to your elders. We have gone before you and can teach you many things. Also remember to check out the Gold Guide over at 20k Leveling - another great resource to get you up and running and making tons of gold in no time. Be sure to check out AuctionHouseJunkies.com for the podcast on making gold hosted by myself and Wes of Capped By Cata.

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Faction Specific Vendor Pets by Sponsor of Sponsored By Sponsor

"Buying pets from the other factions vendors, and transferring them to your current faction to profit at the auction house, can be very lucrative!"





Making Gold Selling Alliance Cooking Recipes To The Horde by Fluxdada of Power Word: Gold

"We will be buying Alliance-specific cooking recipes from Kendor Kabonka [Master of Cooking Recipes] and selling them to the horde via the neutral or horde auction house.  These recipes have very low vendor cost. Alliance players at any level can take advantage of this with little or no capital."




Horde's Crap May Be Alliances Gold by Kuja of Kuja's Gold Mine

"Neutral auction house is a gold mine, especially for low level players if you sell the right items there. I will now let you know how I turned 0 copper into thousands of gold on my fresh level 1 toon after a deadly trip to Booty Bay. All I had to do was invest some gold that I obtained from selling copper first."




Cross Faction Trade Flipping Darkmoon Faire Cards by Argo of Epic Penny Pouch

"I am going to tell you about my latest idea for cross-faction flipping. Attention: it is highly risky and can cause you big losses! But we all know that the more money we get the more risk we are willing to take. At least it is true about me."



The Cross Faction Mount Trade by Wes of Capped By Cata

"However, I didn't realize it, but I had been doing some Cross-Faction trading, but on a much grander scale. My favorite item to Cross Faction trade? Mounts! Trading Card Mounts, or even mounts that came from the Lich King. I love to move them from one side to the other. It's a little more expensive then some of you may be use to, however if you have the capital, it can be a very lucrative transaction."



Cross Faction Riches...Unlikely by Adam of Exploiting My Server

"I feel that most all of our posts for this particular carnival will be pretty much saying the same thing.  Pets–that’s the money maker!  Other than that I don’t even know that there is a whole lot of  other things being sold on a regular day to day basis on the Neutral Auction House"



Flipping Items Cross Faction by Alto of Alto's Goldish Advice

"I was hesitant on posting this information as it has been months since I have done any cross faction trading, but I figured I would help a brother out with a few things I used to do (since Cata, I barely have time to take on my own AH let alone dealing with two!)."

Obsidium Ore Prospecting Crash Coming - MAYBE

Epic Gem Cooldown Removal?

The Data-Mined Cata Gems Vendor Price Change

So MMO-Champion has posted some data-mined information that shows a massive change to the vendor price of cut uncommon quality Cataclysm gems on the current PTR (Public Test Realm) build.

Jewelcrafting

•Bold Carnelian, Solid Zephyrite, Subtle Alicite, Perfect Quick Alicite, Sovereign Nightstone, Regal Jasper, Resolute Hessonite, and any cut of uncommon gem now sells to NPC for 75 silver instead of 9 gold.

Oh Fudge!  If you are like most players and sadly most bloggers, then the sky will be falling soon.  The gem vendor prices will be crashing, the obsidium shuffle will be dead, and all sorts of secondary markets will see major demand and supply changes.  Prospest and Sell all of your ore now before you get stuck with it.  Get out!  Unload your gems, unload your ores, get out from under the obsidium shuffle before it falls on you and leaves you with a major loss of profits.  Get out while you can!

Wait - Stop - Rewind....

Remember the Alchemy epic gem transmute cooldown removal fiasco from last expansion?  Remember when Just My Two Copper bought into the hype and cost a lot of Markco's lemmings a ton of gold from stockpiling for something that wasn't even real?  There was no epic gem cooldown removal, it was just changed to the midnight reset timer that is currently in use.  This may be the exact same type of issue.  I am here to tell you DON'T BELIEVE THE HYPE UNTIL ITS PROVEN TRUE.  Just ask Markco and all the other bloggers who told you to stockpile for the epic cooldown removal.

What We Know

• Data-mined information isn't always correct.
• Data-mined information doesn't always go to the live servers.
• Data-mined information can change before being added to the patch notes.
• Data-mined information cannot in any way be fully trusted.
• The gem vendor price change is NOT in the patch notes.
• There have been no blue posts about a change.
• Blizzard would not "stealth change" something this big.
• If true, it will be added to the official patch notes.
• And even better:  The price of the uncut uncommon gems is 5 gold when vendored on the PTR.

Just more proof that something is mucked up.  The uncut gem sells for 5 gold, but the cut version sells for 75 silver.  If this isn't a huge red-flag, I don't know what else to show you.

Recommendations

The sky is not falling.  The markets aren't for sure going to be crashing.  These changes are not official.  Now it is possible that the price to cut and / or uncut gems will be lowered, but let's wait until it is official before we started to go to extremes.  One of the 2 prices (uncut and cut) is obviously wrong, so let's wait it out.  Something this big will be added to the patch notes.  Why not wait until it is official before believing all this hype about crashing market?  I'm not saying this is completely innaccurate and it could go to the live WoW servers, but be careful in what you follow until its official.  If we learned anything from the epic gem cooldown fiasco it is to only believe blue posts and patch notes as all it takes is one site promoting something to get a snowball rolling that may not even be true.   So don't be a little JMTC lemming.  Learn to think and analyze situations for yourself.

Call To Arms Dungeon Finder | Satchel of Exotic Mysteries

Dungeon Finder: Call to Arms

Call To Arms

Blizzard has recently released information on a new feature coming to the World of Warcraft game.  The new dungeon finder feature Call to Arms will be implemented as part of WoW's Patch 4.1.  You can read the official write-up from the Blizzard site here.

This new Call to Arms upgrade to the dungeon finder is designed to help shorten queue times for random heroics.  Currently DPS characters have the longest wait times, so Blizzard has come up with the Call to Arms feature as a way to bribe tanks and healers to run random heroic dungeons.

When the queue wait times are backed up, whatever role (tank, healer, dps) is in demand, will be Called to Arms.  If that role is Called to Arms, then anyone that queues for a random heroic dungeon that can fill that role will be awarded a bonus, the Satchel of Exotic Mysteries, once the final heroic dungeon boss is killed.

Satchel of Exotic Mysteries

The Satchel of Exotic Mysteries is a nice bribe for those of us with tanks and healers to join the random dungeon finder for heroics when needed.  Having a tank as my main means this will be great for me.  I probably will be not joining any random heroics until tanks are receive the Call to Arms.  Why?  It's because tanks are always the instant queue role due to shortages on my server.  So once Call to Arms comes in Patch 4.1, I will be waiting on my call to enter the heroic dungeons as a tank and get my Satchel of Exotic Mysteries.  The Satchel is also going to be Bind on Account, so you can trade it to your alternate WoW characters once you receive it.  You can also receive the Satchel of Exotic Goods more than once per day as there is no limit as long as you join the queue while your role is Called to Arms.

Satchel of Exotic Mysteries Contents

• Gold
• A Chance at a Rare Gem
• A Chance at a Flask or Elixir
• A Good Chance at a Companion Pet (Includes cross faction pets and reputation awarded pets)
• A Very Rare Chance at a Rare Mount (Only mounts from dungeons [not raids] and odds are the same drop rate as from the original boss source)

The rare mounts include things like:

• Reins of the Ravenlord from Setthek Halls
• Swift White Hawkstrider from Magister's Terrace
• Deathcharger's Reins from Stratholme

So for those of us that are mount collectors, this offers yet another way to obtain those rare mounts and pets that we all long for.  I myself think this is a great addition to the game, but hey my main is a tank so its awesome for me.

Will this new incentive help to shorten the queue times?  Do you think more people will try out tanking and healing roles now?

Check out Cold's Mysterious Fortune Card Mastery Guide

Auction House Management | Multiple Income Threads

Which Way To Go First?

Multiple Income Threads

Diversify.  You've heard it time and time again from every WoW gold blogger in the World of Warcraft blogosphere.  In order to have more options to make gold, you need to have multiple alts and multiple profession coverage.  Having more options helps weather against declining or unprofitable markets.  Being diverse allows you to jump in markets as they are selling at acceptable rates or jump out when the selling price is unacceptable.  Having multiple characters that you use daily can get to be a major task and even worse if you are not organized or planing effectively.

An email we received at Auction House Junkies had the following question included.

"Managing multiple threads of income and what your typical log-on sessions are like, in regard to managing your AH stuff. I know you shuffle ore and such with your JC. What other markets do you bounce around to when those particular markets just aren't working that day?"

Character: Athanas (pronounced Athen-us)

Server: Kul Tiras

A Typical Auctioneering Day

Here is my basic schedule of how I approach the auction house with my alts.  Just to clarify, I do not have a specific character that is just a banking or auctioning toon.  All of my characters make items and list them themselves on the auction house.  I don't send everything to one character and have that character do all of the posting and money collecting.  Each of my characters works together to craft items and mail materials back and forth (if not in the main guild bank).  They all have a ton of gold and buy their own materials.  So here is what my typical auction house daily routine is like.

Auction House Routine

1. Always first thing I do is Check the Jewelcrafting Daily Quest.
2. Complete the JC daily and save the JC token (I'm stockpiling in hopes of epic gem patterns being purchased with the current JC tokens).
3. If the JC daily requires gems, I list the raw gems for the JC daily on the AH is stacks of 3 and as singles.
4. Collect previous day's gold, unsold blue rings, gems, etc from mail and repost.
5. Check market rate of Mysterious Fortune Cards and post some if price is acceptable.
6. Do a full scan for Auctioneer to learn current market values.
7. Do a vendor scan search for mispriced items to buy out and vendor for easy gold.
8. Check snatch list.
9. Log off Jewelcrafter and Log in Alchemist.
10. Alchemist does either the Living Elements transmute or the Truegold transmute.  I always want to have at least 1 Truegold pre-crafted so I can use my Free Truegold Procs Tactic anytime I see someone buying a Truegold cooldown in trade chat.
11. Check Volatiles Market and post any that are in short supply or in a price spike.
12. Post some Mysterious Fortune Cards at prices both above and below the MFC prices of my Jewelcrafter.  This creates an illusion of undercutting competition (but the competition is actually an alt).
13. Send trade chat a couple of Mysterious Fortune Card Barks.
14. Collect previous day's gold, unsold items and repost.
15. Check stock of vendor recipes and repost up to 3 of each.  My Alchemist is also my flipper of all the vendor cooking recipes that I flip.  Restock my Clam Bar Recipes and Sporeling Snack Recipes 5 each. Check for Glowcaps and Spores.
16. Bark MFCs.
17. Check Arcanite Bar market and restock as necessary.
18. Log off and Log in Mage.
19. Mage is a tailor and makes NW Bags mainly.  She is also on the lookout for certain Vanilla WoW crafting items.  She is also my alt that does the companion pet flipping and ports around and restocks recipes and pets in all continents of World of Warcraft.
20. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items then relist.
21. Log out and Log in Blacksmith.
22. Blacksmith collects previous day's gold and unsold items.
23. Crafts and reposts as needed enchanting rods and materials.
24. Searches for Dense Stones for the Darkmoon Faire.
25. Crafts Dense Grinding Stones and mails to my main for storage.
26. Log off and Log in Enchanter / Tailor.
27. Collect previous day's gold and unsold items.
28. Craft to refill stock, then restock auction house.
29. Disenchant any items recieved from other characters sent to be disenchanted.
30. Restock enchanting materials, Rich Purple Silk Shirts, etc.  This alt is also my blues poster.  She does all the disenchanting, storing, and selling of all enchanting related items, but also does the flipping of all BoE blue weapons and armor found by all of my characters.
31. Log off and log in my heavy hitter, my Scribe.
32. Scribe collects massive golds from the previous day.
33. Collect unsold glyphs, Darkmoon Decks and Cards, and Mysterious Fortune Cards.
34. Post MFCs on the auction house staggered in between the other 2 alts that are also selling the MFCs to appear as if there are now 3 of us at war undercutting.
35. Let the barking begin.  I will stay on my scribe manually barking as often as I can varying my barks the whole time.  I bark while scanning, I bark while crafting, I bark while searching, I bark while making deals from trade chat.  I bark while posting glyphs.  You get the picture.  Bonus when someone in trade chat yells your name and says "you're already being undercut on the auction house".  Yup, looks like my alt is making some sales too.  Keep barking.
36. Do a full scan and then relist glyphs.  Keep barking.
37. Craft restock as needed.  Keep barking.
38. Send one last bark before I Log off and Log in my main to run a daily heroic.

Wait!  What about all the Obsidium Shuffling?  Well, I shuffle my ores while I am either watching sports on tv or am recording Auction House Junkies with Wes from Capped by Cata.  As far as searches for items and materials, etc.  I do those general things while I am crafting since we are now able to craft with the auction house window open.  And if I'm on my jewelcrafter, then I will also do some prospecting while I am in the auction house browsing and looking for deals and steals.

So Athanas, there you go.  There's a look into the core of a typical auctioneering play session of mine.  I say "core" because I obviously deviate based on price fluctuations, market trends, hot items, patch notes, in game holidays, etc. but that is the "core" of where I usually start looking for ways to make gold.  Hope it triggers some ideas for you.

Image Credit:  http://www.markmallett.com/

Opportunity Cost of Free Items

Opportunity Cost of Free Goods

Yesterday's post - An Opportunity Cost Case Study - brought some good comments, but I want to bring one comment to the forefront.

"What if your opportunity cost however is free. Like let's say you get Hostess or someone to donate all the goods to you and then sell them for profit. Would it matter less if you sold them for a complete pittance of their actual value, or would you be justified since they were simply handed to you? 

This is the dilemma I recently faced. One of my competitors quit the game recently and gave out a lot of his stuff. He gave a large amount of gold and items to random people in trade for doing miscellaneous tasks, but to me he unloaded guild tab upon guild tab of old world items. (He hadn't playedsince cata came out so all the stuff normal people unloaded at the end of wrath he had stored up in excess) I passed on some of the items to others, used some for leveling my alt professions, and was then left with just unbelievable stacks of things that in small amounts are great sellers, but on my server (which is microscpically small) I was skeptical would ever be unloaded in any timely manner if I were to sell for some of the current prices.  

So, I thought to myself, does it really matter if I undercut everyone "normally and get full market price, or do I simply just want to unload some of it quickly. I chose the latter option and figured since it was technically free, that I could utilize the overinflated prices of what some sellers had the items going for, to kind of help sell mine. Like even if people did not need or want this item, it would show up on their add-ons as a must have for resale profit cuz mine were so far below the current selling price of others. 

I was right, a good portion was bought up by one of the other sellers, and I noticed some of the names who bought some were back up relisting them, but the amount of whispers I got from annoyed people was absolutely astounding. lol and I am still left with incredible amounts. There is probly 101 different ways I could unload some of the stuff other than selling the mats raw, I could have crafted things, or crafted and de'd and in the case of the cloth I did craft like a thousand bags and saved the rest as bolts. A lot of it simply came down to laziness on my part. 
Anyways, at the end of the day I started to wonder if I was being as bad as the people I always talk shit about, "but my mats were free cuz I farmed them!" I mean technically I would argue but mine truly were free, though the end result seemed to be kind of bad, because I left the market oversaturated on some things and am also still left with a large amount of overstock."

 -Skorpsy

Free Goods

 Let's start off by clearing something up first.  "I farmed it so it's free" is wrong because there is a serious time commitment involved in farming or grinding for items.  So when you are farming it's not free.  Farming costs you time.  Time that could be used making more gold elsewhere.

Goods that are gifted, donated, grandfathered, etc. are truly free goods.  They cost you nothing - no time commitment, no gold, no effort.  Therefore they are truly free goods.  They took a little of your time to collect, sort, and post but they are free.

How to price these truly free items is the dilemma as was mentioned in the comment.  Technically you can price them at whatever price you like, even deeply undercutting, because they will be pure profit.  You paid nothing, so any price will be profitable.  If you are deeply undercutting, then you are costing yourself the opportunity to make more gold on the items.  If you simply just want to turn these gifted items into gold, then feel free to post them for whatever price you want.

If some of the items that you received for truly free are also items you sell on a regular basis, then you really need to be careful.  If you flood the market with them and rampant undercutting ensues, you may crash your own market and could be costing yourself much more gold over the course of the devalued pricing period.  Remember to not flood a market and only post a few items at a time at a slightly under market value price, if you want to get a nice return without devaluing the items by flooding.

Who else wants to comment on the opportunity cost of free goods?

Opportunity Cost - IRL Case Study

Opportunity Cost Gone Wrong

A Case Study of Opportunity Cost In Real Life

I did a couple of posts on opportunity cost that both brought out some great discussion in the comments section of each post.  You can review those 2 posts on Opportunity Cost if you need to get caught up to speed.

Opportunity Cost - A Listener Question
Opportunity Cost Part 2

The Bake Sale
Shortly after I did those posts on opportunity cost, we started a fund raising bake sale at work.  Employees were to either bring in baked goods to sell to employees and customers or make a cash donation that would go towards the cancer charity that the proceeds would be going to.  It seemed like a good idea, but once I started to look into the costs and profits I soon began to question the thinking of the other participants.

The basic set-up was to have everything cost 50 cents each on the baked goods table and all money raise would go to the cancer charity. 

I began to look into the cost to create these baked goods as well as the portion sizes and return on investment.  This is where things were starting to not add up for me. 

Let's look at one example.  Someone baked brownies and brought them in for the charity sale.  The divided the large brownie into 9 pieces (twice the size the food label showed as appropriate portions) packaged them in some fancy baggies and added a pink bow to hold them closed.  Then they added a sticker with the price of 50 cents.  I instantly started to run some calculations in my head as I am also a cook and brownies are one of my specialties.

I thought, "If we are selling these at this low of a price for this portion, then couldn't we raise more money by just donating the money it cost to buy the ingredients and skip the bake sale all-together?"

Digging Deeper Into The Brownies

Dozen Eggs $1.19
Brownie Mix (boxed) $2.29
Vegetable Oil $1.29
Total out of pocket:  $4.77 plus tax = $4.80

Brownies Were Cut Into 9 Servings
Cost per serving = $0.53
(This doesn't even include the fancy baggies, pricing stickers, or pink bows that were used to decorate each serving)

The fact that you have a bit of oil left and 9-10 more eggs left over is irrelevant as we are looking at the cost you came out of pocket vs the donation amount earned.

So yeah, in this example it would have been better to just donate the $4.80 to the fund instead of wasting time and effort making brownies to sell at a cost less than it cost to craft.  Even if all 9 brownies sold, the total raised was only going to be $4.50.   To further compound the poor decision,  management was matching all funds raised with an exact amount.  So you cost yourself $4.80, but only raised $4.50 (if all sold).  So $.30 less when doubled makes $.60 you cost the fund raiser, when you could have just donated $5 and been much more efficient.

Not all the brownies sold.  So now you've really wasted your time and money.  The even crazier thing was the brownies were the closest priced item to breaking even.  Everything else was selling for 50 cents as well and the crafting cost on gooey butter cake and other fancier items is much higher than the cheap brownies.

Someone even went as far to buy a premade gooey butter cake, which costs around $8.  this cake was split into 9 pieces and sold for 50 cents apiece.  Really?  You cut a $8 cake to make $4.50?  Just donate the $8 you fool!  After the management doubles that donation its $16 vs the $9 if all the cake pieces sold.

Moral of the Story for WoW

When thinking about crafting your trade goods in World of Warcraft, always use your brain.  The basic formula to follow is this:

Sum of Parts > Crafted Good = Sell Parts
Sum of Parts < Crafted Good = Sell Crafted Goods

A wise goblin doesn't craft to lose money.  Crafting should only be done if you are adding value to the item and you can sell that item for more than the cost of the materials required.

PS:  What did I do for the fund raiser?  Well, I bought baked goods for stupid low prices and got food with my donation.  Like any good goblin, I got the most for my money.