When the Stars Align

Too early to tell just yet, but the perfect storm may have just hit my server.No herb farmers posted to the auction house today. I bought out all the cheap-cheap glyphs over the last few days AND I've got 3 full bank tabs of Adder's Tongue, 1700 Ink of the Sea, and a 20 stack of every glyph

Prices have gone from low-ball 2.50g to an average of 8-10g, and the competition is extremely slim.

To top it off, it's Tuesday, raids have reset, people will need glyphs.

Tonight may be a very special night.

Updates from the weekend coming soon! Read more!

Profits vs. Prophets

In my previous post I started worrying about the short term vs. the long term. Being fresh to the die-hard auctioneering, I don't have enough personal history with the realm to know exactly what to expect, or how and when best to prepare.

I'd probably say I have 4 terms or periods of time I consider right now when making a purchase.
Short Term - This week, or, from a Scribe's P.O.V. - up through the next Faire.
Patch Term - 3.3
Long Term - Next few months
Expansion Term - Before or for the Expansion

Short Term is easy enough. What can I turn over during the weekend or through the raiding portion of the week.

Patch Term- What am I preparing for or buying and selling that could influence 3.3

Long Term- Looking beyond the patch, what's worth investing in without expectation for immediate reward.

Expansion Term- How much gold, bank space and supplies do I need to make sure I benefit the most by new toons and re-starters when the expansion is released.


When the Darkmoon Faire arrives, I can expect a few things: Snowfall ink, Northrend Herbs and Ink of the Sea prices will rise.

Secondary effects: glyph prices rise, more auctions sold to resellers, more time lost replenishing what I can.

I originally thought maintaining a 20 stack of each glyph would be enough for patch 3.3. Thinking about the way the market is currently playing, I'm not so certain anymore.

I'm only making about 1-1.5k gold in glyphs right now. I'm currently the immovable object in the glyph market, but it's requiring me to maintain small profits (most glyphs are moving at 2g-5g right now as I'm still fighting off competition).

Adder's tongue averages between 16-20 gold.
Snowfall Ink, 14g
Ink of the Sea, 3g
Lower NR herbs, 10-12g

The deal I have with my farmer provides me more Goldclover, Tiger Lily and Deadnettle than Adder's Tongue, but I manage a healthy supply of them all.

If I receive 100 stacks on a C.O.D. day, the breakdown is something like:

20 stacks Goldclover
30 stacks Tiger Lily
15 stacks Deadnettle
35 stacks Adder's Tongue


If Goldclover, Deadnettle and Tiger Lily = 5 Ink of the Sea & .5 Snowfall Ink per stack, I'm getting 5 ink for 3 gold.
Adder's Tongue = 6 Ink of the Sea & 1 Snowfall Ink
And I get 6 ink for about 4g.


Every 100 stacks nets me 435 Inks of the Sea and roughly 68 Snowfall Ink.

When the Faire arrives, I can expect many prices to increase, nearly double. I won't be able to rely on my farmer to sell to me during that time, and Crafting 20 of each Glyph will cost me....I'm not even sure, 3-4000 ink?

Short Term, I need to spend some of my saved gold to replenish my glyphs to 20 each, and possibly craft a 2nd batch of 20 each, just to ride out the Faire.

Good news for the short term: Herbs will become scarce even before the faire hits, leaving me with even more Snowfall than usual. I'm already receiving mails asking for C.O.D inks at a discount (nuh-uh, not while I own the market).

I'm guessing a double restock of glyphs may cost me upwards of 10k gold.

If I'm the only real Snowfall provider on my server during the fair, I could set Snowfalls as high as 20 or 23g per ink. If I grab enough herbs for a double re-crafting session, I should have somewhere around 600 Snowfall Ink to sell.

That means in Snowfall Ink alone, I'd make around 12-13k gold.

2000g profit just from the inks. That doesn't include selling a single glyph while my competition is at its weakest.

That's just the short term.

With profits from the short term I can invest more in the herb market, maybe pick up another farmer and really solidify my place in the glyph market.

Downside is, it's almost essential I start REALLY profiting from the glyphs, otherwise I won't have much gold to move around in other ventures.

Anyway, I've rambled on long enough. Do you guys set about following any particular strategies when the Faire approached?
Read more!

You Break It, You Bought It

There's a few concepts I've always understood but never really appreciated until now. For instance, much like nature, the AH abhors a vacuum.


A week ago I found myself an herb farmer. They mail me Tiger Lily, Gold Clover and Adder's Tongue, I CoD them what I owe them.

On top of that, I've been attempting to keep any fellow scribes from making any money. That means heavy investing in AH herbs. Most of those herbs I'll mill and make inks from, sometimes, if the AH price is too good to pass up, I'll resell the herbs.

With a hefty supply of ink and the AH empty of profitable herbs to mill, my competition has fewer resources at their disposal and I buy myself some free from having to undercut as often.

Some side effects of my Herb-whoring:

1. I'm practically the only person with Snowfall Ink to sell.
2. No one else is posting Armor/Weapon III Vellums.
3. Competitors buy my cheap glyphs to resell, instead of crafting their own.
4. Farmer will post to AH if it's more profitable than mailing herbs to me.

Side Effects 1 & 2 are wonderful news. Number 3, however, can be troublesome and 4? I don't even wanna think about #4.

With #3, Aside from having to craft glyphs more often, I need to start spending more time camping the AH again. Competitor A buys out 5 of a glyph at 3.50, he's going to mark them up to 5 or 10g while I have no presence with that glyph.

As I have a 20-stack of each glyph, I'm not about to run out of stock, but if I let Competitor A, B, C or D profit from my glyphs, I'm going to leave them with more money to invest in herbs as they become available.

More scribes with herbs = more competition.

If I have one of the most prolific farmers at my disposal, I'm leaving the AH without a natural adjuster. Farmers help keep prices down. If my farmer isn't helping to lower the AH price for herbs, then herbs will slowly but steadily increase in price until the point at which my farmer earns more money posting there than C.O.D.ing to me. At that point I'm back on the same footing as everyone else.

I wanted to spend this weekend doing nothing but buying up cloth, ore and skins for resale, but despite my 200 stacks of herbs sitting in my new guild bank, I'm wondering if it's enough.

Darkmoon Faire arrives first week of December. That means a week without herbs to purchase. If I focus on the short term, I might make a hefty profit, but I could be losing out on being the sole scribe producing profitable glyphs for that post-darkmoon week.

Whether there's more money in the pre or post Faire market is anyone's guess at this point.

In a week or two, I'll know with some certainty though. Read more!

The Calm Before The Storm

Had a pretty interesting day yesterday, one I plan on sharing in far more detail a bit later. My glyphs are organized, stacked tall, and I'm ready for the weekend. Now I just need to figure out how far North I can go with my gold.

Due to some market diversification and the perfect storm of herbs, farmer C.O.D.ed herbs and slow Snowfall Ink sails, I'm sitting at 4300g right now. With 7000+ glyphs on my alts and 1k+ Inks of the Sea still sitting in my bank, I should have plenty to get me by. I just need to figure out how to best (and safely) blow my wad on investments.

I'll post more later, along with some AH shenanigan images. Read more!

Tricks of the Trade

"It's just business, don't take it personally"
"Relax man, it's just a game."
"Yeah, because alllllll that gold is gonna come in handy when there is no game anymore"

We hear that kind of stuff all the time. It's okay to work your ass off to hit a 2100 rating in the Arena or get the server first for downing a boss, but when it comes to Auction House PvP, we're supposed to take it all with a grain of salt.

Not me. 


Don't get me wrong, I find plenty of reason to laugh, relax and enjoy market manipulation, but I'm the kind of person who takes competition seriously. When I get undercut, I want to understand the motivation of that competitor. Contrary to some views, I believe the only thing better than knowing what your customer wants is understanding what the competition has to offer the.

I've got a hundred strangers on my friend's list, just like many of you. I'm playing 6 degrees of separation each night trying to figure out who's an alt of who. I'm even working on a dual-boxing theory regarding one of my competition.

When I broke into the glyph market a week or two ago, one particular player stood out. Like the best always do, this person managed to post the most auctions at the cheapest prices, and their supply seemed near endless. At that point in time I didn't know how they could POSSIBLY post glyphs for as low as 1.89g. I'm not ashamed to admit I had some digital aggression building up in me.

Fortunately I'm not much for Nerd Raging. With a few days of weary watching, I found a flaw in the top dog's scheduling and managed to turn my initial 300g into 3k by the end of the first weekend. From there, things just got progressively easier.

He hasn't been much of a threat lately. In fact, he used a WTB macro in Trade Chat on his AH alt and then again on a DK he was leveling. I had known nothing about that character. Now I do.

Well, with my little Seller Inquisition going on daily, I started wondering how I might be perceived by my competition. A lot of my time has been spent AH camping while I study different markets on the AH. Every once in awhile I switch to an alt, cancel, collect and repost. On serious nights I'm undercutting every 10 minutes.

I don't mind my competition thinking me a basement-dwelling money-grubbing leech. Anything I get the crowd to believe can only work to my benefit. So, last night, while I was thinking about ways to confuse, contradict or otherwise mess with my competitions perception of me, something popped up in Trade Chat:

The person I considered my biggest threat just asked TRADE CHAT how many glyphs were available. OMFG!

To say I was surprised would be an understatement. Not only did my competitor just show their ignorance ON THEIR AH TOON, they also revealed they likely don't use Ackis Recipe List or spend half as much time researching as they should.

At this point I'm thinking Mythica 1, competitor 0 but then I had an idea.

I watched Trade Chat for a few seconds and no one bothered responding to my competitor. I knew something about him now. Maybe I can teach him a thing or two about me.

I whispered him the answer. Didn't mock, didn't converse, just told the truth and even let slip there were new glyphs on the way.

What did this accomplish?

1. Without getting personal or friendly, he has no idea if I recognize him.
2. He should realize I'm more knowledgeable than him in Inscription.
3. He should be wondering why I was helpful to a competitor.
4. He has no idea what my intentions are.

If you can get your competition to stop and think for a minute, that might be the 60 seconds you need to make the sale.

On a similar note:

One of my alts posts/collects auctions in Darnassus and one of the smaller competitors does as well. I found them using the mailbox outside the AH. They'd collect their mail, take a few steps backward, wait 30+ seconds, then run back up to the mailbox and do it all over again.

/w minor competitor: Try using the /reload ui command. it'll save you time waiting on mail refreshing.


Most believe there's little profit in sharing your tricks. If you can keep everyone believing that, you've got the best trick of 'em all.

Read more!

Credit Where It's Due

Maybe we have Achievements to thank. Maybe it's the unparalleled accessibility to dungeons, heroics and raids. Might just be the need to find Something New. All I know is, the desire and opportunities to make gold in Warcraft have never been higher.

Markets rise and fall on speculation. Digital wars exist between the gatherers and the crafters, each fighting to befriend or destroy the professional farmer, depending on their role.

Auctioneer and its like are practically required add-ons, much like Omen Threatmeter.

Now Warcraft has always had a big I-footprint; sites for theorizing, reviewing or sharing information have been around for quite some time. What I love is that the Economical point-of-view has become so well established over the last year or two.

There's a number of blogs I've been following for a bit now. Some have shown me just how dangerous and intelligent the competition can be. Others have set off a lightbulb over my head or given me something to laugh about.

I'm slowly adding my favorite blogs to my blogroll. In the meantime, I'd like to start giving a shout-out to these guys, girls and goblins for all the information they've acquired and shared with the rest of the community. I originally had no intention of sharing my secrets, tips and advice, but after all the help these folk have provided, I feel I owe it to them.

Below are the first of many links and acknowledgements I'll try to share.

Top Influence spot belongs to Gevlon at Greedy Goblin. Love him or undercut him, no one has likely done more for (or against!) the Glyph Industry. He's pretty much the Deep Throat when it comes to the potential wealth in Inscription.

Second up, Belsebub at The Happy Scribe. As far as web popularity goes, I'm not quite sure where he fits, but This Post helped me realize how amazing Quick Auctions 2 can be. Not only did it show me the slight of hand behind the magic, it made me realize just how cumbersome my old workflow had been. I went from nearly giving up on Glyphs to making them my primary source of income.

Next comes Tella over at Hit The Cap! Tella's site isn't so much a how-to guide as it is a perfect every-man's POV of the Gold Game. With a weakness for Hyacinth Macaws and regular examples of market penetration, I've been given hope we needn't all be economics freaks or painfully thrifty to achieve the gold cap.

I'll have more to come, probably next week. I'm still determining what sort of schedule I may keep for my posts. Heck, I haven't even explained what the primary focus of my blog will be lol. Read more!

You Don't Know What You've Got Till It's Gone

I'm really anxious to get this blog rolling. I haven't had a chance to explain how I make gold or provide any details into my workflow.

Needless to say, one of my professions is Inscription and over the last week I started pushing to be a contender on this server.

Herb prices over the last week have risen sharply, thanks in part to me getting a lucky break and finding someone to sell me herbs directly. That coupled with buying out any reasonable auction has left all the other glyph sellers working at a deficit.

With fewer mats available and me buying up cheap auctions, all the other scribes were running low and undercutting far less often.

Today was one hell of a lucky day for me. I purchased 3000 gold worth of herbs off the AH when a bunch of farmers snuck in and posted. When I went to my inbox to collect them, I found another 1000 gold worth of herbs C.O.D.ed to me from my farmer.

To top it off, one of my competition got anxious and started buying out my glyphs. Poor guy didn't know I keep stacks of 15-20 on my bank alts at all times.

Log onto an alt, cancel undercuts, collect cancelled auctions, repost.

Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold
Your Auction of Glyph of Unbreakable Armor has sold

Wait a few minutes, watch him relist at a higher price, then I come in and post another 5-7 of the glyph below his price.

Since I've been the main low-price seller, I wanted to see how far I could push him. he bought a couple of 15g glyphs, but mostly kept his limit to 7g per glyph.

Trust me, i was okay with that.

So I spent over 4k today on herbs and I've got nearly that much money in Snowfall Ink, let alone the 2400 Ink of the Sea I now have sitting in my bank.

Gosh I love this game sometimes. Read more!