While Tomes, Flawless Square Emerald and FS Ruby prices have been following the typical late-patch cycle of a slow decrease in price, FS Topazes and Amethysts have seen a steady surge in value as the PTR has done along. Their Marquise Plans have likewise seen a paradoxical increase in value lately.

As far as I can tell there's no reason for their increases in price other than pure speculation. It's not like there's a sudden increase decrease in Amethysts or Topazes dropping or a sudden surge in player demand. I suspect there are others that have noticed the best pre- and post-patch flipping opportunities have been FS Topazes. I know I was certainly planning to invest at least 50% of my bankroll in FS Topazes when it felt like the prices hit the floor.

My guess is that Blizzard is pretty much done with their changes in the PTR and we could see 1.0.8 as soon as next Tuesday. After I acquire the last few pieces of my newest fun gear set (Life regen Barb), I intend to invest nearly every last Gold piece I have in Tomes of Secrets. They've had a stable price around 400 Gold for at least 2 weeks which indicates to me that's pretty much their true price. They're also going to see an enormous spike in demand as players come back. I wouldn't be surprised to see them peak in the 1200 range again post-patch.

I've had lots of luck flipping these around patch time, but I never get enough at the bottom. I am actually less interested in it this patch because FS take up so much inventory space. I can't justify the tax on the crafting cost to do anything else though.....

Good topic for what to stock up on though. I like speculation, but think I'll go with Tomes of Secret again. They are used a lot, and if gems go up in price (i.e. more demand) tomes have to follow. Brimstones are actually really cheap too.

Posted by nuhertz at 04/22/2013 08:31 AM

I've had lots of luck flipping these around patch time, but I never get enough at the bottom. I am actually less interested in it this patch because FS take up so much inventory space.

I kept stacks in my AH slots. You can throw 5,000 up on the AH, for instance, at some ridiculous price and immediately end the auction to keep them in 1 of your 50 slots on the AH. Just remember that you need to have 50 empty slots in your stash to bring those 5,000 back down when you want to sell them. You can do the same thing with Tomes and those come down in stacks of 1,000 so you can easily store hundreds of thousands in your 50 AH slots in stacks of 50,000.

Then when you're selling them post-patch, you can put them up to sell at different price points. Monday night, put up 100k to sell at 995 Gold / Tome, 50k at 1195 / Tome and 25k at 1495 / tome. Adjust those numbers based on your own speculation, of course. When the patch goes live, you'll be near the front of the line to sell them as the price spikes. By hedging, you won't be selling them all at the height of the market, but you'll be guaranteeing you sell a large proportion of them at a good profit, some at a great profit and a few at the top price you forecast. Then when it peaks at 1350, you've profited on 75% of your Tomes while a dozen other speculators set theirs at 1500 and have to panic sell them off at 600.

Also, don't forget last patch that Tome prices spiked, crashed and then rose steadily over the next week or two to around the spike price. It will probably be profitable to avoid selling during the initial panic crash. You actually could consider actively buying them at their floor with the profits you earned from your hedged selling allowing you to double dip in the market over the following week.

Remember tomes stack up to 1,000, and they generally have the same kind of reaction to prices. This way I don't have to guess at the gems.

To be honest though, the upside is larger if you guess the right gem. I think I had 1000% increase in FS Emeralds when I played the market.

I'm also considering emptying my characters of the big gems too. Although 16 Radiant Stars isn't too crazy, and likely more hassle than it's worth.

Here's a link to my 1.0.7 post-mortem. FS Emeralds saw no profit whatsoever and Topazes, for the 3rd patch running had the largest ROI of the FS gems. Tomes of Secret were easily the biggest profit, however. They were about 600 before the patch and peaked at 1450 the day of the patch and eventually got up to 2,000 a few days after the patch. At 400 / Tome right now, I suspect they're good for 150-250% ROI (excl AH fees).

Me too, @ecocd. Those 11 spots are all tomes purchases

@Baldy Great minds...
If Tomes creep up to, say, 600 or 700 approaching the patch, would you grab a quick 50% profit or are you in it solely for 1,000+ prices post-patch?

Occasionally I'm jealous of people with 2.6 billion Gold to invest (~$145, I think), but then I think about the work it requires to get that amount and I'm not so jealous anymore. That's a lot of Tomes, my friend. Best of luck! I suspect you'll be left with well over 4 billion once you've sold through them all.

I was told in game that 100m gold can be purchased for $4. Simply blew my mind.

I calculate it at double that with the current conversion with gems.

Might have to flex my purchasing power, simply to see if I can buy more tomes than @Baldy.

I'm perfectly content with my Life Regen Barb set that will cost half my 30 million Gold bankroll. Really. I am. No, really.

Posted by nuhertz at 04/22/2013 01:36 PM

I was told in game that 100m gold can be purchased for $4. Simply blew my mind.

I calculate it at double that with the current conversion with gems.

Might have to flex my purchasing power, simply to see if I can buy more tomes than @Baldy.

Is that a challenge @nuhertz? lol

I still have a substantial bank left and the prices of tomes are ever dwindling... I have been contemplating buying even more as the price is almost half of what I started out buying my first batches of tomes was. (does that make sense? lol)

Also, I have been curious. Does it matter the size of the stack you have up to sell or does a specific stack size sell at any given time? For example, if I stick up a stack of 100k tomes at a specific price and I am next in line to sell, will they have to be purchased at once or can multiple buyers buy from my single large stack?

Posted by ecocd at 04/22/2013 01:30 PM

@Baldy Great minds...
If Tomes creep up to, say, 600 or 700 approaching the patch, would you grab a quick 50% profit or are you in it solely for 1,000+ prices post-patch?

We all want to get the biggest bang for the buck. Seeing as how the tomes high price will be lower (in my estimation anyways) than it was for the beginning of 1.07, I really don't think waiting for the highest possible price would be a good idea. It will definitely be a crap-shoot this go round.

No idea, @Baldy. We know Gold/$ sales operated differently based on the size of the stack for sale. I have no idea on commodities. I don't even know how to test it.

I know that when I've canceled large blocks of gems in the past, I've ocassionaly had a few of them already sold when I cancel the auction. So I put 1000 up for auction, cancel it 6 hours later and I'll get 350 gems back plus the gold for the 650 that sold.

Yup, it works like any share market. Sales will occur at the lowest list price. So yes, part fills will happen. Also why its important to list at 849 instead of 850, for example, to undercut people who simply chuck their gems up at 850 coz your gems will sell before theirs.

Order is as follows:

Lowest price
Oldest listing

Stack size is irrelevant.

Example:
1 tome listed at 875 at 3:55
100 tomes listed at 849 at 4:00
10000 tomes listed at 850 at 4:01
10 tomes listed at 849 at 4:02

The only time the time listed at 875 will sell is in those 5 minutes there's nothing lower, or when all are sold.

At 4:03 the first stack purchased is the 100, then the 10, then the 10000. Each will be drawn in that order until none remain and the next stack will then be depleted.

1 gold lower can jump large amounts of tomes. I like to test how fast 1 sells at a given price, then move accordingly.

@baldy at 140k tomes already. :)

Lol, wont be surprised if the market has already gone up thanks to you two guys. Good work.

Side note, something strange happened to me the other night. Wanted to do some crafting so bought 1000 tomes. In the comlpeted tab I was refunded almost all my gold. The 1000 tomes cost me 6300 gold. Tried again but paid the full amount of roughly 430,000. Weird.

I have seen this happen randomely when checking prices, usually buying one at a time. I would buy individuals in random succession waiting for the 50g buy to pop up, which happens sometimes, and I would scramble to up my purchase quantity. I have never been able to capitalize like that at the higher quantity. Congrats!

I know this thread is supposed to be about flawless gems but, well, wutevs.

I just bought 300k more tomes at roughly 300g per. After each of the three transactions (100k each) blizz killed my connection. I think I broke the internetz...

Doesn't seem to be much interest in Flawless gems and it's great fun watching the internet peeing contest between @baldy and @nuhertz even if Baldy appears to have taken a commanding lead.

I bought 50k at 320 Gold this morning which I've pretty happy with. I read some news sites and discovered a blue post about adjusting the monster density in the next PTR patch, so I guess I jumped the gun by at least a week on my forecast. It will be interesting to see how low Tomes get in the following 2+ weeks. It's really a fool's errand trying to predict the patch dropping isn't it? I really should stop trying to do that.

Hi,
I found this thread very interesting, so much so I have stopped lurking and finally registered and posted :)
I've have been stacking up on FS Emeralds recently, prices are nice and low at the moment on the EU server my purchase price is around 2800 averaged over the 75k that i've bought so far. A couple of times I got real lucky and managed to buy as someone was manipulating prices like the time when I got 1000 emeralds for 55000g!
I have also been stacking up on tomes and so far have 300k of them with an average purchase price of 280.

My initial aim was to double my investment and whilst i'll be happy if I achieve that, in the back of my mind im thinking if I time my sales right so much more could be possible.

Just to be clear to everyone reading our madness........

It's EXTREMELY possible that tomes continue to fall. Even after the patch. There is nothing to support increased demand, and increased monster density would suggest increased drop rates.

This is risky, and although tomes can only go down to 0 (theoretically) and the sky is the limit on the upper end, there is no telling how long you would have to wait, or if they would halve before they double.

Food for thought. Don't play the market if you can't accept the risk.

Totally agree with @nuhertz. This can easily turn bad with the increased density. The only thing that points to an increase is the possibility of returning players demanding tomes for crafting. At the moment my average price is about 320g and I have invested only about 30mil so breakeven is 368. Thats sounds pretty good, but looking at previous prices of tomes going back to 2012 they hung around 60-200 for a good 3-4 months. If that happens again...ouch.

Well, all you negative nellies can go take long walks of short piers.

Me? Call me Mr. effing positive!!! Why you may ask? Let me tell you!!!

I just calculated that if I sell all the tomes I have purchased for just 999 gold per I will rake in close to 1.274 billion gold after the cut. This is only gross profit, I need to figure out what I paid (can't very well do that at work ;) and calculate the average in order to figure out my total net from this little investment.

That said, I bought another 60k. :)

Wow, I wish I had a bankroll to be buying so many tomes...! ;-0 All I could afford to buy the other day was 50,000. That being said, I got lucky & purchased them during a price dip, only spending 228 gold per tome... :-)