Pots of Gold - On The Fall of Gem Prices
I loved this article on gems falling in value because it's spot on: Epic gems have been slowly decreasing in price since they were introduced. Many gems I paid 400 gold for when they first come out have dropped down to an measly 160. Why is this? Supply and Demand.
First off, more ways to get epic gems were introduced, everything from transmutes to honor purchases to badges to prospecting. More and more gems appeared but what's worse, gems could be gathered by anyone, not just jewelcrafters and in large supplies.
As supply rose with the easy methods for gathering gems demand could never keep up. People were getting the gems they needed for free and then selling off the extras. This led to lower and lower prices. Myself, I make around 600-1000 gold selling epic gems a week. I buy them wtih honor, badges, and the uncuts off the AH if they are 25 gold below a cut gem's average value.
I also pay attention to trade chat for people looking for cuts and have a few of each gem on hand for this. One word of warning: if you don't make use of the cheap methods of getting gems and just try to resell them you will have trouble maintaining a steady cash flow. Mix it up and look into the badge/honor/prospecting/transmuting route for the majority of your gems.
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9 comments: on "Declining Price of Epic Gems"
Anonymous said... November 25, 2009 at 8:20 AM
I highly recommend people to power level up alchemy to 450 if they have the spare gold. If you have a JC with epic cuts you can make an epic gem and cut it for less than 20g, making easily over 100g profit. Ofc this is just once per day which is why I am going to powerlevel some more alchemists :P
Futue.
Spitfire of Spinebreaker said... November 25, 2009 at 8:25 AM
[Quote]One word of warning: if you don't make use of the cheap methods of getting gems and just try to resell them you will have trouble maintaining a steady cash flow.[/quote]
Say what? I make most of my gold by doing exactly what you warn against: I buy cheap, uncut gems off the AH, cut them and resell for profit. This nets me about 1k a day. It also takes close to no time at all, maybe 10 min or so. So unless you were talking about just reselling gems without cutting them, that comment makes no sense whatsoever.
On the falling prices, I believe it's purely supply/demand driven. Now TotC has been out for quite some time, most people are already geared from it, and don't need to gem their nonexistent new gear. People who aren't geared are most likely casuals or alts, and they don't want to spend sick amounts on gems. When IC comes out, I expect the gems to steadily increase. Or stay low until the supply crashes.
Another thing: you should NEVER base anything on prices for cut gems. They fluctuate a whole lot. For example, if a gem is seen on ah for 400g, you can have loads of people posting it, trying to get their slice of the cake, then seeing how many post it try to sell it cheaply to get out of their deal. You should rather look at prices for raw gems, as they are much more steady. The premium for a cut gem has averaged about 50% all the time I've been in the market.
And one last thing: I can't speak for other servers, but on mine the price decrease has been far from dramatic, gems are now an average 20g or so cheaper than when they stabilized after 3.2 came out. Also, they have recently taken a small upturn after being low for a few weeks, with me reaping the profits. Wohoo!!!
jimmyolsenblues said... November 25, 2009 at 9:01 AM
Yes, I agree Alchemy450 works very well with JC450... I am late to the JC game..I only know 3 epic cuts...
30 stam, 23 spell, and 15 stam/10 dodge....
But I will do my JC everyday to further flood the market.
Anonymous said... November 25, 2009 at 1:57 PM
I have no doubt we'll see a huge spike once 3.3 hits with 3 brand new ilvl 232 heroics. Probably from 150 to the 200 mark.
Magz said... November 25, 2009 at 6:44 PM
Since posting about the decline in the value of the purple jewels, nothing really has changed. THe profits are still there but admittedly at a lower value. However like the last commenter stated am hoping for a surge after 3.3.
I don't believe thugh that the profits in terms of per gem will increase hugely more the volune hence why I have spent the last 2 weeks posting less and stockpiling more. I have bought roughly 15k in uncut gems and have currently almost 200 epic gems sitting silently in the shadows of my guild bank. To supplement this I have also roughly 200 of each Ruby and common Autumn's glow keeping the epics company. It's goingto be mayhem but I have a plan to avoid having to AH camp, somethign which will not be possible given the impending arrival of Magz Jnr No. 2
All in all by the the ptch hits and the first few days are gone, I should hopefully have gone well beyond gold cap. That was the plan and once that happens then it's time to relax.
I really should at some point post more on my methods and my madness in how I operate.
Anonymous said... November 25, 2009 at 8:21 PM
Hey Marcko, I apologize about your previous mishap with another blog owner and I'm sure this is probably not the time for you to answer unrelated questions... if you get a second though, could you please leave a reply to this comment....
I was curious how you would deal with a glyph market (that you want to become a part of) that has two people that come on basically 24 hours a day and are willing to push prices into the ground (From herb prices over the period of two weeks, it seems like they only lose money) just to undercut and be there. Is the only way to transfer servers (or try another market)? I know it sounds unreal, but it seems like there is nothing to do. And they are definately 100% real WoW players and not gold farmers of any kind... thanks, sorry for the long post.
Anonymous said... November 25, 2009 at 10:27 PM
Don't forget epic gems come from the satchel onyxia drops.
Unknown said... November 26, 2009 at 7:20 PM
I love your site Marko!!!
but I got some comments about JC and epic gems.
well you make 1k a week selling raw gems I make 10k-12k a week selling cut gems... or did...
proof? i hit gold cap, bought gave a friend 12.5k to buy the mats for her Hog, and by the 8th day of her hog, I was back to gold cap again.
send my alt 10k, and again by the 7th or 8th day. I was back to gold cap again. I do this weekly, giving away gold to friends or sending it to an alt.
anyways this wasn't about how much I was making but a comment on the gem prices.
my strat in AH has always been under cut by very little and only post 1 gem cut at a time, at 12hour auctions, never more for gems
Ie, I buy RAW epic gem at <150g each cut and post for 200g-290g,
I undercut by 1 gold if auction >200g and 1 silver if <200g, and yes, even Eye of Zul cuts I sell for 290g each. I loot 3k-5k gold on tuesdays when I login of which about 30-40% is profit. I rinse and repeat daily, sometimes I loot only 1k from the mail system but the most was about 6k-ish. I only post 1 gem of each cut because its pricey to post gems.
I guess its more about a comment on the other people on my server but they post 4 of X cut at a time and at <170g, epic gems on average go for 120-150g per raw gem on my server. so I think these people are pretty stupid. plus I only post 1 cut of each gem for 2 reason.
1. no point in taking up a raw gem in a cut that might be undercut, just loose 1.5g on AH fees per gem for nothing, u can turn those raw gems into other cuts that might be more profitable, and not get stuck with 3 of X cut and cant post it because it wasnt as profitable.
2. share the wealth, when I sell mine, u you sell yours, its healthy and not 100% greedy.
only time I ever post more than 1 if X cut is if there isnt any at all on the AH. and I only do that with metas, yellow gems, and solid gem cuts.
Metas I push at 135g a cut. I buy Eternal fires or Raw metas at about 40g then cut and post. Always push the price...
WoW isnt "real" and players will pay whatever if they got the cash, Blizz is basically giving away gold these days its stupid.
The point of undercutting little is just to get your buyout price lower than the cheapest guy, try it WoW players only buy whatever is at the top of the list, do they look and say, hey. he's only cheaper by 1 silver..., no they dont they just see, "I want, I buy"
I've proved this many times, Moonshroud, I use this to fund my opposite faction to play both AHs, I make it on my horde tailor and send it to my alliance bank alt. usually goes for about 100g each then one day there was none and some guy posted it for 240g each... I figured I'll play along, I post 4 for 220g each, and I sell 2 of 4.
Epic gems on my server was down to like 150g for some good cuts cuz of idiots but some are back up, its an up and down case, any given day could be different. but right now I've already noticed that Eye of Zuls are following the trend of forrest emeralds, they are cheap and cheap cuts too, its just based on the player and how much they know or realized the potential of what is out there. more players now have a more patterns, and yes gems are easier to get. but mark my words... like someone just commented... come 3.3 patch day and new PvP season start...
OMG! if you dont have mats horded up... you're going to lose out!
when ToC came out, I sold buckets of Cut Metas at 135g, and my friend sold 80+ uncuts for 80g each, he doubled profts, I tripled profits.
I started playing WoW a little before Black Temple came out, so I was never there for vanilla, but I remember I was at 500g when I finally bought my epic flyer in BC and borrowed 1500g from a friend to start my venture. I was at 130k-ish when LK came out, after giving away 5k for a friend's epic flying and 10k to the guy that lent me that 1.5g to start, I JC is basically a license to dupe gold with this strat.
never answer anyone in trade, never LFW in trade cuz thats just lame.
on top of that its one of the BEST for game buffs.
Panasi said... November 28, 2009 at 3:02 AM
I miss TBC's method of having epic gems only come from raids. Stupid casuals ruining everything.
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