Making Gold by Splitting Stacks

Today we are going to look at ways to make money by splitting stacks of items that you buy in the Auction House. There are many reasons why people don't want to buy full stacks of items. Sometimes they only need one or two of an item to make (or have made) something they want for their character. For example, take the Mooncloth robe, I just made for my Mage. I needed two golden pearls and I didn't have any, so I trotted off to the AH to pick them up. Much to my dismay, there was only a stack of 20 for 25 gold. Now it's not like I could not afford to buy the stack, but I didn't need 20, I only needed 2 ! And as any of you that have been playing WoW a long time know, the market for gold pearls is not what it used to be before they upped the drop rate. I remember shelling out (pun intended :p) 40 gold for two pearls to make a robe for my priest, back in the day.

Most any other time when this happens, I just buy the stack, take what I need and then put the rest back in the AH for the same price I paid for it. (A nice way to get your mats you need for free) but since selling gold pearls is pretty hard to do, I didn't want to be stuck with 18 of them. I ended up bumming them off a guildie, who was just as happy to get rid of them and make space in her bank. It was a good solution, but make sure you don't make a habit of hitting up your guildies for stuff, unless you are just as free in giving them stuff in return.

Other reasons why people don't want to buy a full stack may be that they don't have the money to buy the whole thing, or they are just too cheap to part with it. There are any number of reasons why full stacks don't always sell, but the why isn't that important. All you need to know is that you can benefit from the fact that they don't. If you buy full stacks, there is a good chance that you will be able to split them up and sell them for more than what you paid. For example, I picked up a stack of Super Healing Potions, in the AH today for 11g 25s. I immediately turned around and split them into 3 singles for 3.25 gold each and one stack of two for 6.5 gold. A neat 5 gold profit (less AH fees, of course) with no muss and no fuss.

Now I know you are asking: How do I know which items to try this with ? I am sorry I cannot give you a list, there are simply too many. I know which ones to pick because I have leveled most all professions, so I know what stuff is needed for them. I also am familiar with what mats make the more popular potions that are always needed (like health, mana, agility, defense) and what items are needed for quests (like ungoro soil and Hillman's cloaks) and stuff like that. However, there are some standbys that I think are almost always worth a look:

Leather - especially heavy, rugged and knothide
Cloth - especially wool, mageweave and runecloth (always wanted as it used for rep turn ins)
Shards - small and large brilliant and radiant shards, and large prismatic shards
Herbs - almost any herb will work
Metals - not the low level stuff, but thorium bars are needed for arcanite transmute, fel iron bars are needed for a quest and Eternium Ore is needed for enchanting, to name a few.
Potions - most any type of potion that sells (some don't) you can split up and resell.
Primals - everything in BC needs primals. 'Nuff said.
Gems - I usually stick to lower level ones.
Elementals & Essences - air, water, earth, fire, undeath......these are all used in professions and sell well in ones and twos.

I could go on and on, but one thing you need to remember is that each server is different. How popular some things are on a server that has tons of 70's may be very different than a newer server with very few high levels. Another important thing to remember is to make sure you look to see what the going price is for singles of what you plan to split. If you buy a stack of pots that you need to sell for 3 gold each to make profit, make sure that someone doesn't have 10 singles in there for 2 gold each.

Well, that's all for today, hope you all make some gold !

Jade

A Quick Way to Make a Few Gold With NO work

Woo hoo.....was a fun weekend, but I am glad it's over. Too much partying and fun is exhausting. :) Time to get back to business ! Since everyone is probably still recovering today, like I am, I will make it short. A quick and easy way to make a few gold in the AH with basically no work. You will need some gold to start with, to use this method, 50 to 100 should be enough unless you run into some really good deals.

It's really pretty basic. You simply check the price of each of the primals....earth, life, shadow, fire, air, mana. One at a time, you see if any of them are selling (buyout) for at least two gold less than the majority of the others for sale. You buy them, and immediately put them back in the AH for the going rate. I guarantee they will sell before the day is over if you underbid the cheapest one there.

I did this with primal mana, just a few minutes ago. There were three of them in the AH for a buyout of 14 gold. The next cheapest one was (buyout) of 17g 75s. I quickly bought the three for 14 and put them back in the AH for 17g 50s. Two of the three had already sold by the time I was done doing my auctions.

There you have it. An easy 10+ gold with no work. Just check the primal market every day and there is a good chance you can find a deal or two for some quick cash. You can also do this with enchanting mats, like large prismatic shards. Don't forget to scroll down to the bottom to check out the price per item for stacks and partial stacks. They may be cheaper to buy in bulk and you can sell them one at a time for more.

Have a good rest of the day !

Jade

A "My Space" for WoW

I found a neat site today: http://www.warcraftking.com. It's kind of like a "My Space" for WoW players. You can make a profile page, join groups, and they have a forum. I joined it under my alliance character's name, Nikkani. (Nikki for short)

Come check it out :)

Hugs,

Jade

I Made New Free Sig Website

Sorry I have been MIA for the last few days, but I have been working on a new project ! Since I love to do graphical artwork so much, I decided to make a website that offers free personalized signature tags and avatars. Signature Tags (called Sigs or Siggies) are pictures of your character with your name at the bottom. People use them to sign off on their forum posts, or e mails. They look something like this:

http://www.freesigs.gamegraphics.biz/

Avatars are small images that are used on the left of forum posts, usually as an easy means of identifying the poster. Avatars can have your name or be blank. They look something like this:

http://www.freesigs.gamegraphics.biz/

I am very excited about this and I hope that lots of people will order sigs for their toons ! I also made a sister site for Guild Banners. However, since Guild Banners are custom made and much more involved to make, I had to charge a small fee for making them. ($5 to $20) I can't put a sample of my Banners here because the images are very large, but if you want to see, check out the site at: http://www.guildbanners.gamegraphics.biz/.

That's all for today !

Jade

Employment for your AH Toon

G'day !

Today's post is kind of a continuation of my last one, in that it also deals with your AH toon. As you recall, an AH toon is one that resides in a capital city and does nothing but deal with your auctions.

First of all, you should level your AH toon to level 5, so they can learn a profession. Yes, regardless of what you have heard, you can make money with low level professions. You may not want to do this till you have 20 or so gold, because you are going to need some money to buy mats. My favorite two professions for AH toons are tailoring and enchanting. At very low levels of tailoring, you can make quite a few items that almost always sell in the AH.......and usually for more than you would think. Here is how I do it:

How to make extra money with your AH toon with tailoring/enchanting:

1. Level your toon to 5 and learn tailoring and enchanting.
2. Go to the AH and buy all linen cloth that is 15 silver or less for a stack of 20 pieces or 10 bolts. If there is none, then keep checking till there is. Don't buy more expensive stacks, it defeats the purpose of making a profit.
3. Level your tailoring till you can make the following: white, brown, red, blue and green linen shirts and white and red linen robes.
4. The shirts you can put in the AH and sell for 12 to 75 silver each. The white and brown sell for less and the green sells for slightly more. Before you put them in the AH, check and see if there are any in there and price yours a little less. If some idiot has put 20 of one color in for 1 silver each (he obviously made them to level his skill) then don't put any of your shirts of that color in that day, just hold on to them till the dollar shirts sell off and then you can sell yours for more.
5. Level your enchanting till you get the chant for +5 to health. It's really low, like 20 or something. Once you have it, then go to the AH and buy a stack of Strange Dust. Don't pay more than 1 gold for it.
6. The while linen robe pattern is from the trainer, but the red linen robe pattern you will have to buy. It is a very common pattern and you should not have to pay more than 10 silver for it. Learn both patterns and make three each per day, put the little +5 health chant on them and you can sell them for 89 silver to 1 gold 75 silver, depending on your server. Before putting them in the AH, check and see if there are any others in there already. If they are priced at 25 silver or less, buy them and enchant them and resell them. If they are over 25 silver, yours will still have an edge, even if they are priced higher, because of the enchant.

If you do this every time you put your quest loot in the AH, you will easily make an extra 5 gold or more, just from the sale of these small, low level things. You can do the same with some higher level tailoring items and make even more extra gold, but that is a post for another day. :)

Laters,

Jade

The Importance of Having an AH Toon

Early on in my WoW playing career, I came to three conclusions:

1. Always have the biggest bags you can.
2. NEVER throw anything away that you get while questing, and if you have to, then toss singles and not stacks.
3. Make an auction house toon, no matter how low level your main is.

The first two are self explanatory, so let's talk about the last one. You need to have a toon in your gold making arsenal that does nothing but sit in a capital city and be a businessman/woman. When you are out questing, every time you are near a mailbox, stop and do a "bag dump." This means you mail everything you have collected while questing to you AH toon. In the begining, I mailed everything, but after I learned what was garbage and what I could sell, I just sent the latter and vendored the rest. It can be a bit tricky to know the which is which and you have to be diligent to notice the difference between Lifeless Stone (garbage) and Solid Stone. (used by Jewelcrafters and Engineers) If you are too new to the game to know what to vendor, then mail everything and look items up on Thottbot.

You may be thinking that its a lot of trouble to go through to sell a green or a gray for few silver, but actually it's not. Just mail all your stuff to the AH toon, and then once every day or two (I recommend not more than that) you log into your AH guy and you dump everything into the Auction House and let nature take it's course. Next time you log in, you will have gold waiting for you ! Get in the habit of doing this every time you play and the gold you earn stacks up. If you don't know what to charge for items, check in the AH to see the going rate or use Auctioneer. (I will go into using Auctioneer, in more detail, in the future.....it is essential)

Now I know that my techniques are not for the average player. Many people I play with think I am crazy for bothering to sell everything I run across. I just smile, knowing I have epic flying mounts for all five of my 70's. Do they ? Usually not.....so you tell me who is crazy ? :)

Cya for today !

Jade

How to be Annoying in a Raid :)

A friend asked me to come and help out in a Karazhan raid last night, and being the nice person that I am, I said "Sure !" Little did I know what I was getting into. It seems that they had a severe shortage of guildies for this run and had filled it mostly with PUGs. I could write book on the mistakes that were made, but the most outstanding thing that screamed to be written about was the annoying habits of the people in the group. Hence, this blog post:

How to be Annoying in a Raid

1. Make sure to always show up late and without any reagents or potions that you will need for the ensuing battles. Everyone will be happy to share theirs with you and it will save you money, since you won't have to buy them.
   
2. Whenever you are not fighting, constantly jump around like your butt is on fire. Make sure to do other "cute and funny" things like constantly sniffing, poking, slapping, farting and every other emote that Bliz offers, to everyone in the raid, especially the leader. I guarantee s/he will be impressed.
3. Give orders to others in the raid, tell them how to fight, what to do, and how to play their character. After all, you know how to do all these things better than anyone else, right ? Everyone in the group will appreciate your help and will make sure to remember you.
4. Swear every other word, especially if you are in Vent/TS. It will show the others how grown up you are.
5. Walk away from your computer whenever you want, without telling anyone. If you feel the need to go play with your pet tarantula for a few minutes, that's cool and no one will mind.
6. Roll need or say you need every piece of loot that drops, even if you can't really use it. That way you will get more loot and come out ahead
7. Never run back on a wipe. Just stay dead and the priest or pally can rez you when they come back. That *is* their job, isn't it ?
8. Lastly, make sure you put the raid leader on your Friends List and every time you see him or her online, whisper them and ask when the next raid is. It will keep your name fresh in their mind for the next time they need someone.

This list is, of course written "tongue in cheek" to be amusing, but I am sure you get the idea. Don't do these things, people. It is a sure fire way to never be asked back and to get a reputation as someone undesirable to group with.

Till next time,

Jade