Making Gold with the Garrison Auction House

As I get back into my stride with goldmaking in WoW, I'm finding all sorts of nice opportunities to make gold on the Auction House. One of my newest earners is flipping the parts that make up the Garrison Auction House or the Ancient Trading Mechanism.

Take a look at the Undermine Journal page above - it's for my server so yours may be very different but I'm sure there will be the same opportunities for you as there are here for me.

The first thing I look at when using the Undermine Journal is to compare the current prices with the mean prices. You can see that on some of the component parts, current prices are way below the mean prices which signals an opportunity. I've been buying up cheap component parts and flipping them for close to the mean prices or above.

Where some of the current prices are above the mean, that's probably my auctions pushing them up - I'm not being too greedy but I am a goldmaking goblin after all! My best sale so far is a 70 gold Super Cooling Tubing which sold for over 1200 gold.

The other thing I look for is whether a full set of components is available to make up a full module and whether the cost of the parts is less than the module sale price. You can see that the Super Cooling Module parts would cost around 1200 gold but the current sale price is at 2500 gold - sadly there aren't any coolant components available (I wonder why! muhahaha!) so it looks like I'll be keeping that profit to myself!

I've only been flipping these parts and modules but you do need to think about where they come from. The Super Cooling Module parts and the Cyclical Power Module parts come from the quest zones so they will always be the most plentiful and therefore the cheaper markets. The Auction Control Module comes from dungeons which is also a cheap market due to plentiful supply.

The Arcane Crystal Module parts come from raids and garrison invasions but although some of the components seem to be plentiful, the Arcane Crystal Lens is rarely seen on my server which has pushed its' price way up.

The hardest module parts to get and therefore the most expensive one is the Universal Language Module which comes from Ashran. I was chatting to a fellow goldmaker in game last night who was barking in the trade channel to buy one. He didn't believe the AH price was reasonable and was hoping he could get a bargain through trade. If you like to PvP then perhaps this is not so difficult to obtain but for us PvP-novices, it seems like a million miles away from possible! Even for all that gold, I doubt I will ever really get into Ashran to fight.

There is definitely gold to be made in this market but even after just a couple of evenings, I can see that some prices are being undercut a great deal which is bringing average prices down. I could keep buying up every really cheap component I see and I will for a little while on some of them but if the volume available is too high, I'll just be filling my bags with junk. So I'll take what profit I can for now, maybe store a few components & modules in my guild bank and keep checking back periodically to see if the prices have stabilized at all.

30 Minutes a Day Project - Day 28 Wrap Up

Well, I finally made it to the end of the project with only 4 days missed. Now for me, that's actually pretty darn good and I only missed those days due to being in hospital so I'm quite pleased with myself for that. However, I am also not so pleased with myself about how much I didn't make this month!

I listed the last lot of stuff at the end of Day 27 without really caring or watching how much I was listing for. And wouldn't you know it? As soon as I stop trying so hard, I have my best day of the whole month! When I emptied the mailbox this evening, I picked up almost 570 gold. I still have a bunch of stuff left to sell but only enough to fill my backpack so really, I think I timed that pretty well too.

Just for information, I thought I'd include the My Sales addon summary screen for the month so you can see where I made the most sales this month. Now obviously, this doesn't show profit but I was really lucky through the month and I'm not sure I made many losses all the way through the project.

I have to say, I think I really lucked out with doing this in December! I didn't even consider the Winter Veil festival when I had this idea but of course, Strange Dust is top of my sales list and I'd hazard a guess that it was almost all profit too! The Rugged Leather and Wool Cloth sales were bonus markets from Winter Veil too but I quickly fell into a habit of checking the herb market first and with the time limit, I mainly stayed with flipping herbs.

I did occasionally venture into other markets but too late in the month to show up on the top sellers list. The few recipes I picked up early on didn't sell very well although they did sell eventually. I wonder if I should have gone to get more and keep trying with those. 

So in the end, 28 days for 15 minutes a day should have resulted in  7 hours played time. As I found out very quickly, 15 minutes to do all the AH stuff is ok but it didn't give me time to record all the transactions so my actual played time is shown above at almost 14 hours. That means I spent about 30 minutes a day logged in but that was not just recording & making transactions. I also have some very chatty realID friends so a bit of that time was chat time too!

I did enjoy this project but I also found it very frustrating. I started it because I needed some kind of impetus to log in & do something productive but once in game, my natural inclination is to hang out in the Auction House for hours, just scanning for deals and absorbing price information so the time limit drove me crazy!

I hope you've found a bit of useful info somewhere in this diary of a newbie banker and just in case you're wondering, the closing balance of gold in her bag was 1713 gold. Not very good at all by my expectations but still not too bad given the restrictions.

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 25 - 27

And so we come to the last of the daily updates - I've got one more post after this to summarise the whole project and wrap up some final numbers for you but I won't be boring you with big spreadsheets for a while again now! 

Day 25

I picked up almost 200 gold from the mailbox today which wasn't too bad considering I didn't have too much more actually listed on the Auction House! I did a scan and grabbed what bargains I could find quickly. I really am trying to buy a lot more stuff but there just doesn't seem to be that many obvious bargains around at the moment! I scanned the herb market as usual and dipped into the Mists cooking materials too but the deals were few and far between.

As you can see, I did pick up 3 cheap Clockwork Rocket Bot pets for around 120g each - I'm hoping these will sell quickly but I have my doubts to be honest, I haven't had a huge amount of success with Battle Pets. These may turn out to be better as longer term investments - once the buzz of Winter Veil has died down and these aren't so easily available, they should fetch a very nice price but sadly, that will be too late for this little project.


Day 26
Only 125 gold from the mailbox today but that's partly a timing thing again as I logged in early today and late evening yesterday. At this point, I still have a bunch of auctions still listed from yesterday so they could still sell at some point today.

I grabbed another piece of level 83/84 green armor for just 18 gold. I don't have a grip on this market on this server so I played it a bit safe and relisted it for just 75 gold. On my main server, I'd be relisting at 185 - 199 gold but only because I have that market almost to myself there.

I did pick up a sweet deal on the Briarthorn though - I just hope it sells for that crazy high price! I'm already regretting buying the Khadgar's Whisker for so much - it seemed like a sweet deal given the current prices but when I was filling in my spreadsheet, I realised the whole market was inflated and I think I'm probably going to lose on that one.

It does show the importance of checking trends though - this isn't going to kill my efforts or bankrupt me but if I was investing in a much larger purchase, I'd have been stupid not to check out the market averages on The Undermine Journal at least.


Day 27
So given that I missed 4 days at some point during the month, today is 31st December and it's the last official day of this project. The mailbox gave me about 270 gold and as I suspected yesterday, the Khadgar's Whiskers didn't sell.

As I was listing the remaining stock, I did buy a few bits and pieces, just to raise the bottom price in those markets. Sometimes, it's worth spending a few silvers or gold to clear out the bottom items before you list your own stuff. It's what I've been doing all along of course - buying the very cheapest items and relisting them at a higher price but if you're not used to flipping and you're trying to sell stuff your alts have picked up, it may be a new(ish) idea to you.

I relisted everything in my bags and logged off. Tomorrow I'll collect my gold and say a fond farewell to Kalanna, my banker.

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Saturday Celebrations - Weale, Silver Hand-US

This week we have a story of a self-made millionaire, Weale from Silver Hand-US server. With a slightly different outlook on gold making, Weale avoids the traditional markets and has made reselling his own.

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last few months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it!

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What is your milestone amount?
1 Million total Altoholic gold. 

What got you started making gold and when?
I've always had "some" gold but I never really focused on accumulating it. It was sometime around the end of the year in 2012 that I started taking "making gold" more seriously. I cleared a couple hundred thousand with a lot of effort put into crafting during the early weeks of MoP so I did have maybe 200-300k spread around on Silver Hand Horde characters when I decided I would try to "make a million." 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
I've made most of my gold this year by reselling. Not all but I would say maybe 60-80%. I started reselling items on a lark around the beginning of 2013, and was surprised what a decent business it was. Ultimately it became what I concentrated most on. 

Biggest successes or biggest failures
Well I sold the first bar of Living Steel ever put on our AH for 20k. That was ridiculous. But the biggest success was certainly figuring out a way to resell efficiently. I keep about 1,000 auctions up and I have my search and pricing pretty smoothly automated. 

In the world of failures, I avoid most "obvious" crafted items like gems, blue gear, flasks/potions etc, because they are just a lot of trouble for the amount of money they bring in. (On my server anyway.) Occasionally I will cut gems and scribe glyphs for alts and when I do, I often make a batch to sell. I also try to make desirable items from casually or cheaply collected materials -- the 553 pants, or Sky Golem/Pierre. Even if those sell at the supposed materials cost, my actual materials cost might be 1/2 that or less. 

The battle pet market is terrible on my fairly small economy server. I thought it might be a good thing at first, but eventually I just wound up with 1-1/2 guild tabs of pets that I will try to sell some day if/when we get connected to other servers. 

Advice for new goldmakers
If you want to resell, you need to be able to log in multiple times per day and have your mail -> AH process working smoothly. You need to be prepared to relist some/many items for months. 

If you are selling crafted items, get the materials as cheaply and quickly as you can. 

Don't buy ANYTHING for yourself unless it's really important. The only things I even remotely splurged on were enough battle pets to get me the collecting achievements.

If you have a bunch of level 90 alts, ALWAYS do your Lei Shen treasure runs. You can easily get 300-500 "free" gold and 2-3 spirits of harmony for your 10-15 minutes of work (go find a key, do a run). That is a lot of gold and spirits per hour. 

Shout outs for any blogs or podcasts that helped you along the way
Pretty much figured it out all on my own. 

What's your new goal, if any?
3-4 months ago I was sure I wouldn't make it to 1 Million by the end of the year, but I passed 1 Million in gold last week. I might make it to 1.1 Million by the end of the year. Meanwhile I have an inventory of stuff worth maybe 2 Million more, about half it listed regularly, the other half chilling out in a vault. 

I think I will continue to do what I'm doing but spend some of the money I make on luxuries. I feel like after being reasonably successful this year, I've earned it!

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So there we go - reselling is big business for Weale - Congratulations on your first Million gold and may it continue to pour into your bags!

The funny thing is that I don't usually resell stuff, especially transmog or high level armor - transmog just didn't seem to take off on my small server and I've lost touch with the high end stuff so I steer clear of it. However, for the last month, I've been doing my 30 minutes a day project and reselling is pretty much all I've been doing, albeit at the very bottom end of the markets!

Having read Weale's story, maybe I should look at it again - at the very least, it will give me something to write about and I can afford to take a risk here & there now too!

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 22 - 24

OK, time to play catch-up! I'm a few days late writing this up so it may be a bit sketchy on the details! Had a lovely quiet Christmas Day with just Mum and Bro and then Boxing Day there too (that's the day after Christmas for my US friends), so I didn't get much time online.

Day 22
Basically I just emptied the mail box and had a quick skim - saw a whole bunch of cheap Mageweave Cloth, grabbed it, relisted and dashed off to Mum's for lunch! It was nice to see such high prices for the Bolts of Linen Cloth and Silk Cloth though. I find it really hard to understand why the Bolts sell for so much more than the cloth - it's the same with the Bars of ore versus the ore prices - you can almost always guarantee that Bars/Bolts prices will be higher than the simple material cost.

Yes, I understand that one more process and therefore a bit of additional time has gone into making them but to buy cloth at 10 silvers and sell the bolts for almost 1 gold is crazy mark-up! I'm not complaining though - it's a great way to make some starting capital as you only need the most very basic training in Tailoring or Mining to craft them both and you can easily make a lot of gold if you have the time.

Day 23
So the holidays are over and it's time to get back to the Auction House. Not many sales but a nice chunk of change in the mailbox today. The 3 stacks of Silkweed netted me almost double the amount of gold I paid for them and the Mageweave all sold too.

I spent almost all of my 15 minutes today snatching up the cheapest items from a variety of categories. Herbs have proved to be a good source of profit so of course, I look there first. Today though, I also checked out the Mists cooking materials, the cloth and the Ores/Bars markets. There were loads of listings for herbs at silly low prices - Terocone and Talandra's Rose had really large gaps to the next priced auction so I nabbed those. I just hope they sell for that crazy high price!

I am having real problems spending large amounts of gold though - I'm so risk averse and very aware of my time limits so I'm going for the obvious bargains. I think perhaps if I had given myself more time, I'd be taking a bit more of a risk with the level 83/84 green armor market. I don't want to be left with a bunch of stock at the end of this project so I'm playing it safe I guess.

If this was going to be my new playing server, I think I'd be more inclined to just go for it, knowing that the stuff would sell eventually. I'd also be leveling alts, picking up stuff to sell or use and having professions leveling too. I'd be gathering on the first couple of alts just to provide materials for professions and then to sell excess stuff. Add in copious quantities of vendor trash and my gold stash would be building quite nicely I think!


Day 24
Yet another lazy day but what a great haul out of the mailbox! I listed fairly late last night and this was late morning so only a few auctions had expired. I planned to come back later in the day to relist any other expired auctions and to grab some bargains but time kind of got away from me and I didn't make it back into game to complete my 15 minutes!

At least I've stopped making silly mistakes from rushing to much now but that doesn't make me feel any better about my poor performance in this project! It does show me how important it is to keep up with the markets though and how much time is needed to really make this work.

I'm definitely going to do this again soon but with a different set of rules for myself. I think the time constraint was a good idea and it was designed to make me log in and do something productive in a short amount of time rather than to log in and faff about for hours. Knowing you have a whole evening ahead can sometimes put you off logging in when you're in a bit of a slump. You need to give yourself goals or a mini project rather than wandering aimlessly which is what I've been doing for a while now.

I have my to-do list on my other blog and I have a baby Shaman and Warlock fighting for my attention but I have this nagging main Pally that just won't let me rest! I'm trying hard to ignore her for the time being but I still find myself logging her and then getting disheartened when she's still rubbish! I think I'm going to have to turn my music up loud and drown her out for a while - I've got stuff to get done you know! lol

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 19 - 21

With Christmas fast approaching, I've been trying to keep on top of this little side project and my main server. I did get a little distracted by my shiny new baby Warlock so the baby Shaman I'm supposed to leveling with this bank alt has kind of been sitting around. I'm also late posting this update as you may have noticed!

Day 19

Not a huge haul from the mailbox today but I did go on a bit of a shopping spree in the herb section again. The Strange Dust market has finally been overloaded and prices have dropped considerably and although it's still very profitable, I don't particularly want Strange Dust to be my main source of gold in this project so I haven't bothered with it today.

I did buy just one level 83 green armor item just to see if that market is viable on this server. It's probably too late in the month to make huge amounts of gold from but it's also a market that requires a bit of capital and storage space. It's well worth checking out if you have a bit more gold than I do here at the moment though.

As you can see from my bought list and listed prices, I'm hoping to double my money on quite a few purchases today. Some, like the Ghost Iron Ore, will be a very nice chunk of change coming in, others, like the Silverleaf or Bruiseweed, will still be double their purchase price but there weren't so many cheap ones available.

It was nice to see the Spider's Silk so cheap but with a top end price that made the flip worth the risk. It was always one of my favorite things to snatch cheap on my main server for making the Spider Silk Cloak and Boots although those have been relegated now with the advent of additional heirlooms for those slots.

Day 20

Today is Christmas Eve and due to family duties, I only had time to empty the mailbox and list some of the stuff from the Shaman's leveling adventures this morning. I still have plenty listed on the Auction House from last night soI'm still hopeful for more sales later in the day which I can pick up tomorrow morning. I was really pleased to see the Ghost Iron Ore sold and the Stitched Shoulderpads - I'll have to remember this level 83-84 green armor market if I do another project in January!

Day 21

Christmas Day has finally arrived and as I logged in to Ironforge, I realised I should have taken my banker back to Stormwind! The lag was horrendous, with so many players trying to get their Winter Veil presents from under the tree and some really obnoxious idiots who refused to get off their giant mounts or move away from the area, no matter how nicely people were asking them to!

It's another family day too so I grabbed the gold out of the mailbox (eventually, stupid lag!) and hearthed back to Stormwind to spend a few minutes in the Auction House. I relisted any expired auctions and grabbed just a few deals before heading to Mum's house. 

One of the markets that has surprised me over the last week or two is the Silk Cloth market. I haven't leveled a lowbie in a long while but I know some of the loot tables changed a while back. I always used to pick up loads of Silk Cloth when leveling but I'm guessing it's not so plentiful now. With Bolts of Silk Cloth listed for 10g or more, I may have to rummage through my main banks to see how much gold I'm sitting on!

I was surprised to see Small Eggs are still holding a price of about 2gold as well - the Wool Cloth & Rugged Leather markets are almost back to normal prices and Copper Bars never really moved upwards at all!

Closing gold balance after purchases today was 979 gold - woop woop! So close to the 1000 gold mark now, I can't believe how excited I am! It seems kinda silly, given how much I have on my main server but I've been enjoying this challenge and once I saw how slowly it was building, I wasn't sure I'd even make the 1000 gold point by month end!

Early on, I bought just a few cooking recipes from the vendor in Old Town. Some sold but some didn't and through leveling, I've picked up a couple more which aren't selling either. I guess with the changes to cooking at the beginning of Mists where you can level cooking almost without leaving Halfhill, this is another old market which is dying if not dead already. It's a shame really as it was a great way to pick up some starter capital for new players.

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30 Minutes a Day Project - Days 10 - 12

This project is one of those that seem like a good idea at the time but that get out of hand very quickly! I keep wanting to log in to see if my auctions have sold or if I can find any more cheap stuff to buy! The knack of flipping cheap stuff in the early stages of making gold is definitely frequency. The more often you can log in to start with, the less time profits are just sitting unused in your mailbox and the better chance you have of nabbing the bargains.

Day 10

Having said that, Day 10, I wasn't able to log in more than once and that was in the evening. I did pull 22g 60s out of the mailbox from selling all the Mageweave Cloth & the Exotic Leather. That gave me about 80g to play with as I started looking for bargains. I spent almost all of it this time - between bids, relisting lots of stuff & buying a stack of Rugged Leather to take a gamble on the Winter Veil boom, I didn't leave much of a safety net! Just 6 gold left in the coffers as I closed out the day.

I also fell back into one of my old getting started tricks. I learned Tailoring and Enchanting on my Banker. I've been picking up so much cheap Linen Cloth that I just don't have the bag space for it now. I know it will sell and almost double my money but there is an even better way. I converted all of it to Bolts of Linen Cloth which gave me 46 skill points & then I learnt and made 10 sets of Brown Linen Pants. The Brown Linen Pants take 2 bolts of linen and a coarse thread - that's just 4 pieces of Linen Cloth so the overall cost is less than 20silvers usually.

Next I picked up Enchanting, made my enchanted copper rod and disenchanted all the Brown Linen Pants - that gave me 14 Strange Dust and with the two extras I picked up from the Enchanting Supplies vendor, I listed the Strange Dust at 19g 84s. By spending a few minutes crafting and disenchanting, I potentially turned 2 gold into almost 20 gold. You have to watch the Strange Dust market prices and judge for yourself but as long as you don't swamp the market and crash the price, it will sell.

Day 11

The first day of Winter Veil and I had high hopes for selling my cheap wool for good prices. I logged in just before 10.30am to find that the wool prices were still stupid low so I just emptied the mailbox of 24g and promptly logged out again!

Late afternoon, early evening, I logged back in and lo and behold, the wool prices were semi-reasonable. Not as high as I had hoped they would go but still, very nice profits there if I could sell mine at those prices too. I did make a mistake somewhere though - I bid 8g20 per stack for 3 stacks of Wool Cloth - way above what I had been spending - not really sure what happened but I figure I'll be lucky not to make a loss on those.

Day 12

Well, the first day of Winter Veil seemed a bit hopeless but I guess most of my customers waited until the evening to buy stuff! I logged in this morning to find 166 gold in the mailbox! All the Wool Cloth, the Rugged Leather and the Strange Dust had sold overnight so that was a huge relief!

I made some more Brown Linen Pants and disenchanted them. This time 25 Pants gave me 27 Strange Dust & 6 Lesser Magic Essences - at a cost of about 7gold. I listed the dust & essences to give a potential sale price of 26g as the Strange Dust price has slipped a little.

I listed some more wool & a stack of Rugged Leather that I snatched up quickly then logged off. This 15 minutes a day is very restrictive as I could easily spend much more time scanning the AH and looking for deals but that's the habit I'm trying to break! To get my enjoyment of the rest of the game back, I have to wean myself off scanning the Auction House for hours on end!

Last thing last night, I logged in just in case I'd made more sales - woop woop! another 170 gold in the mailbox - all the Strange Dust, Magic Essences had sold and best of all, the slight gamble on the Rugged Leather had paid off too - 35g turned to 100g in just a few hours! Now I have over 300 gold to play with tomorrow so it's time to start looking at slightly more expensive items.

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Saturday Celebrations - Drayper, Dalaran-US

This week we have a great story of success from Drayper - it's been a few weeks since I received this submission so I'm betting he's gone beyond his latest target by now!

If you'd like to submit your own gold making Milestone Interview, instructions & more details are on my Milestone Interviews page. Any milestone is suitable - whether it be 100k or 10 million, we want to hear about YOUR story. Don't be shy! You've seen what others are sending in over the last couple of months so come on - tell us how you've been doing it! Don't make me persuade you too! lol

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About me
Hello, I go by Drayper in-game on US-Dalaran. I have been playing since July of 2013. I played a few years back pretty seriously on Alexstrasza, but quit right before WotLK released. I have since started out brand new with no help from friends or guilds. My wife and myself play together in our own personal guild just bankin' that gold! 

What is your milestone amount?
My first milestone was 10k, I worked hard and it came easily within my first few weeks of playing. So I would'nt be tempted to spend, I set my next milestone for 50k which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be looking back now. I set my next milestone for 100k, which came really fast to my surprise due to the fact that I had a good couple of weeks in sales. I just reached 200k the first week of October and I think for the amount of time I put into strictly making gold versus playing the game and taking into consideration the short time I've been playing, that impresses me and I am proud of my gold stash. 

What got you started making gold and when?
Honestly, a few days after I started playing I told myself I wanted to have enough gold to buy whatever I want. Although that isn't a definable amount, I proceeded to do my homework to get started on my goal. After nearly 4 years of not playing and 3 expansions later, I had some catching up to do. I did some research on new gold making tactics, weeded out ones I didn't want to work with or couldn't yet and set myself up with some helpful addons. 

Which markets have you concentrated on, if any?
You can call me a flipper... I'll flip anything I believe I can profit on. In my early levels I started my bank by farming and selling resources, mainly ore. Once I had money to spend I started to invest. Invest in what...?

I started out in transmog gear. Being a noob to MoP, I barely knew what it was or why these pieces were considered so valuable. After further research I understood, and that was almost my main source of income to my 10k milestone. I started to delve a little deeper into more and more pieces with less luck than I'd hoped for. I then came across transmuting Saronite Ore into Titanium Bars and made a good profit that way. I just farmed the Saronite in Icecrown which with no competition is very fast. After a few more weeks of trying to sell off my stash of transmog greens, I finally had gotten rid of most of them and stumbled upon MoP blues for levels 80 - 85. 

Once I found this "hidden" niche, I pretty much cast out all attempts to stay in the transmog market (except the more rare and valuable items).I invested completely into these MoP blues that many players toss in the auction house for 50 - 250g not knowing their full potential. I time and time again, sell level 81-84 items for 1500 - 3000g depending on the slot and item. Belts, bracers, feet, rings, and back don't tend to sell for as much as other slots from my experience. 

Level 80 ilvl 409 rares are outrageously overpowered to any level 80 and some players decide to "Twink" there. Ilvl 409 weapons generally range from 5-10k depending on the item and buyer, other 409 pieces will bring 2500g+. Level 85 ilvl 450 items will also bring a bit more than the lvl 81-84's but not quite as much as the ilvl 409 weapons for any slot in the 450 category. 

Long, most likely confusing, but it works for me and I know this market very well on my server and I generally don't have competition besides the players who get a drop and see what I have mine priced at in AH then undercut me by 1g... I have weeks where I'll make 10k and some I make 50k, like my last week! 

Biggest successes or biggest failures
Strictly talking flipping, my biggest successes would be a few things I'll list here:
Sealed Tome of the Lost Legion x 2 - Paid 50g ea - Sold 6k ea
A few ilvl 409 MoP rare weapons - Paid < 500g ea - Sold 7.5k ea 

A couple pending sales I have:
Plans: Dirge - Paid 25g - Worth 15-25k
Skullflame Shield - Paid 200g - Worth 20k+
Heaving plates of Protection - Paid 250g - Worth 15k 

Biggest Failure would be these two [The Night Blade]'s that I have. Paid 500g for one posted it up for 10k, soon after someone posted one for 2k and I had been doing well so far so I gambled and bought it. Had them both for like two and a half months and dropped the price to 5k ea and still no buyers lol. Mainly a transmog item nowadays so I still have them for sale needless to say. Anyone want to buy them...? 

Advice for new goldmakers
Don't get all excited about some new gold making strategy you just read about and dump all of your funds into it right away. Do your research, test the market (competitor's, demand, realm population and trends), and then once you are more comfortable with the market you can decide whether it's worth the investment/effort. Every realm is slightly different than the other so your results will differ slightly. 

Just looking at all the glyphs and inscription items in AH, I told myself right away I would not touch that market based on the amount of effort it would take with competitors etc. I feel I can make better gold, faster and easier in other ways. Choose whats right for you. There is money to be made everywhere. 

I feel your gold making strategies and decisions are heavily based on your play style and time available. I myself wanted to find a market where I could post an item, let it sit, go back to playing and not care about it anymore until it expired or sold. I like to spend my time productively progressing in the game rather than solely making gold. I think I've learned my markets well enough to be able to do both very well. 

Addons!
I use a few great addons for helping me specifically in my gold making endeavors. After using them, I would hate to play without them, but they are not necessary, mainly preference.

I would recommend these addons:
Auctioneer - A must have for me! Makes posting auctions a breeze and very easy to use. Also has a separate "Search" tab with many different search filters (the "resale" filter is a great way to find these great deals).
Accountant - Keeps track of gold flow. In/out and what categories it went to or came from.
TSM Accounting - A nice addon to keep track of sales. Has detailed info about every item you buy/sell. Great addon! 

I know a ton of big time gold makers say TSM Auctioning is an essential addon. I personally do not use it because I feel that my market isn't one where I'm mass posting gems, ores, glyphs, herbs etc. I am posting mostly one of a certain item due to its rarity and Auctioneer works perfectly in that manner. 

What's your new goal, if any?
My new goal is to hit 500k in the near future. I have a long run goal to break 1 million. 

Reward yourself for reaching goal?
I have yet to reward myself with a "big" purchase. I plan to reward myself by making a Ruby Panther with my Jewelcrafter here soon, maybe once I pass 250k!

I'm just glad I set myself in a gold making mindset right off the bat this go around. I know my market has risk but I dont get scared and just bail out on a certain item to break even. I stick it out and I think thats where a lot of people go wrong, they just get scared to easily too soon. Obviously it takes gold to make gold, and Im not afraid to make those investments.

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What a great interview CJ, thank you! Full of useful & interesting bits to keep us thinking. And that's what gold making is about, isn't it? I've often said that the best add-on a goldmaker can use is his/her brain - you can look at numbers, screens full of information, websites etc but unless your brain is switched on, it won't make a blind bit of difference.

I know when I'm coasting, my sales figures drop and that jolts me awake again, especially as I post my results weekly and you guys can all see me being lazy too!  I'll warn you now though - I've had a hellish busy week so Monday's report isn't looking very pretty either! Oh and I'm still addicted to Hearthstone too!

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20 Days of Gold Making - Day 16 Flipping

So I'm on the downhill stretch to the end of my 20 Days of Gold Making now and today the question is "Flipping! Do you flip stuff regularly or sometimes? Big ticket items or smaller high volume stuff?". The best bit of this whole 20 Days thing is that not all the participants are gold blogs and from reading a few of their posts, it seems like 'flipping' isn't a word as widely used as I thought it was when I wrote the list of questions so just in case you're not sure what I mean either, here's my personal definition!

"Flipping - when you buy an item off the Auction House,

 purely with the intent to sell it again at a higher price"

With that said then yes, I do a fair amount of flipping, especially when I'm starting fresh somewhere or if I start a little competition with a friend. But I'm not very good at taking risks & I'm also not very good with keeping up with gear specs at raid level so I don't touch any high price items like Epic armor or weapons.

I usually look at high volume markets like herbs & ores, (most of the Volatiles were great for a while in Cataclysm) but also cooking materials like vegetables & meats. I actually flip these now rather than do the whole Ironpaw Token Shuffle as I got fed up waiting for my 100 year old soy sauce to sell! It seems the rush to level Cooking is pretty much over so now it's just mats for regular buff food usage.

I did a fairly detailed post about using Auctionator addon to find items to flip - you may know flipping as 'buy low, sell high' but that's a bit of a misnomer to be honest. I prefer 'buy low, sell higher' but it's not as eye catching I guess!

A perfect example of a major market for flipping is the transmog market. Experienced players in the transmog field know exactly which pieces of lower level gear has a transmog value & they snatch them up when the rest of us unknowing levelers list them on the Auction House for just a few gold. I know some transmog goldmakers also farm instances & rares for those special items but the building blocks of the transmog market is based heavily on flipping.

Alongside the transmog gear market is the high level leveling armor. In Cataclysm I did dabble a bit with level 77-80 green armor - some of the armor that dropped off Cataclysm mobs could be used by pre-Cataclysm levelers with stats that were way above anything available in Northrend. That market is still there but is much smaller now obviously, superceded by the level 80-84 green & blue armors from Mists of Pandaria mobs.

I haven't really dived into this one yet - I have managed to sell most of the greens I picked up whilst leveling at quite nice prices (199g - 299g for greens) but I haven't made a concerted effort to search the Auction House for those items to flip.

If you know your Auction House well, you can flip almost anything given the right price at the right time. The trick of course is to catch those bargains. Two tools you can use to help with bargain hunting is The Undermine Journal & Wowuction - both have txt/email message systems where you can be notified when something you are looking for pops up on their scans. The Undermine Journal also has a 'bargains' page which comes in very handy sometimes!

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Auction House Alt - Day 1

I started a human rogue purely for the closeness to SW & I know the starter zone so well, I could flip thru there in about 20 minutes. I arrived in Stormwind and went directly to the Old Town where I had a quest hand in from the guy in Goldshire. I now had 9silver 63copper to my name. As I was already in Old Town, I went to the cooking recipe vendor & bought the Beer Basted Ribs recipe for 2s 40c, knowing that it would sell for at least 1gold if not a lot more.

On my way back to the AH, someone was paying for guild charter sigs so I piped up, signed up & made 7g - nice little boost to my starter pot. Posted the recipe for 3g 90s, undercutting the one already listed & proceeded to do my auctioneer scan.

The first search I do at this stage is always a vendor search & today it proved very worthwhile. There was a Fractured Alicite selling for 5g when the vendor price is 9g so I grabbed that, ran to mailbox, picked it up & vendored it! Pure luck but an immediate profit of 4g :)

The next stage of my search is done on the normal AH browse screen - I sorted by time left & did a general search under Trade Goods. I was looking for those tiny bid deals that were going to finish very soon, hoping a) to win them or b) not tie my cash up for too long. I was in luck again! Mageroyal with 1s bid, very cheap mageweave & some monstrous claws, all short time left with bid prices below 20silvers and even some volatile waters, although they were on long auctions and I probably won't win them, it's always worth a try :)

So, with 7g 19s 34c left, I decided that was enough for now & went for some lunch. Imagine my pleasure when I came back to find I'd not only won the mageroyal & mageweave but also had sold the Beer Basted Ribs recipe!

Straight back to the recipe vendor in Old Town, bought 1 of each recipe except the 2 bind on pickup ones & put those up for auction, listed the few bits I'd won & left it at that for today. Closing gold balance 11g 85s 59c.