Weekly Recap: Gems, Recipes and Skeleton Keys

We meet again.

According to this new-fangled Analyst addon I've been using in the last seven days I've grossed around 27k with a net profit of just over 14k.

In this weeks recap I'll be going over what worked, what didn't and what's new. I'll talk about how the gem market is treating me, some unexpected cooking recipe sales and watching prices yo-yo.

What Worked
Uncommon Raw Cataclysm Gems - I've come to the conclusion that I may be a bit too attached to the raw Cataclysm gem market. I know I'm always preaching about diversity and how we need to be able to move into other markets.

There is something to be said though for having a specific market you know inside and out. For me right now that is selling raw green-quality (or "uncommon") gems. I know it. I love it.

There is some thing comforting about knowing that if I sell something for a certain price I will always make a profit. I love having all the pricing in my head and watching the market ebb and flow.

So yes after wondering if "The Shuffle" was coming or going (see "The Obsidium Shuffle: Heating Up or Winding Down?"), calling for auctioneers to look for price spikes (see "Capitalizing On The Post-Ban "Bump" (Now's The Time)") and (re)giving some advice for how to massage the market (see "Leaving Bait On The Table") I guess you can say I'm a bit obsessed with this little corner of the gold-making game.

Top sellers were uncommon Cataclysm gems.

From the shot above you can see that the most sold auctions contain many raw green-quality Cataclysm gems. The amount in the screenshot seems low to me though. Perhaps I just didn't sell as many as I thought I did.

The key here is that they sold. There is no use to have items up for sale if nobody wants them (see "The Drag Hiding in Your Bag (or Hello Mr. Albatross!)"). People want these gems. They are used for JC dailies, transmuting to blue0quality gems, transmuting to meta gems and making Fire Prisms.

I doubt the demand for these will die down anytime soon. Also you can shuffle and shuffle all day long. As long as there are players putting ore up on the Auction House for reasonable prices you can always turn it around.

That being said, I run my prospecting in a "Just-In-Time" manner. I don't stockpile. I buy just enough ore (usually around 6-8 stacks) to get a good shuffle on when stock run low. If i start to overflow on a certain color I'll list in 20 stacks or make jewelry and disenchant it to get rid of them.

Even though I was a bit scared bots would be ruining my server's gem market that hasn't turned out to be the case.

The prices for blue-quality Cataclysm gems has been dropping fast though. I only ever transmuted Inferno Rubies and Ember Topaz and I've stopped transmuting those for now as the prices are really low.

Obsidium Skeleton Keys - These have been selling pretty well (see "Obsidium Skeleton Keys: Gold Hiding Right On Our Keyrings?"). I've chosen to keep a low profile and not bark (to help keep competitors from find this). I've sold 13 so far for around 29g a piece. I'll keep these up as long as people keep buying them.

The math of Void Shatter.

Void Shatter -  I've been working this little money maker for a couple weeks now. If the market bears, it's an easy way to triple or even quadruple your money. The amounts are small but they add up over time.

The Void Shatter recipe is purchased on the Isle of Quel'Danas and requires Shattered Sun reputation.

What Didn't Work
Murglesnout - I can officially say that my attempt at predicting upcoming cooking recipes for Murglesnout (see "The Muglesnout Gambit") is officially a bust.

I bought WAY too many and after shuffling them from toon to toon in the mail I finally just vendored them this week. It was worth the risk as the fish were cheap but it never panned out. I'm not sure I'll ever get the smell of fish out of my bags.

What's New
Horde Cooking Recipes - While getting a but of coin over to my Horde alt I noticed a few Horde-only recipes on the Nuetral Auction House for 20g a piece. I picked them up and was able to sell them on the Alliance Auction House for 50g each.

Horde-only cooking recipes sold to the Alliance.

Not too shabby. I've listed the recipes that I was able to sell below. I'll be keeping my eye out for these on the neutral (or better yet picking them up individually on a Horde alt).

Check the Wowhead links below for recipe locations.

• Recipe: Bat Bites
• Recipe: Crispy Bat Wing
• Recipe: Crispy Lizard Tail
• Recipe: Hot Lion Chops
• Recipe: Lynx Steak
• Recipe: Scorpid Surprise

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