The Great Glyph Experiment Part Three

GLYPHING 101

1. To make money glyphing, you need to make glyphs and sell them for more than it costs you to make them plus 5% (AH fee)
   
2. To make a specific glyph you need a specific ink and a specific type of parchment
3. Parchment can be purchased anytime from vendors
4. Specific inks are made from specific pigments
5. Specific pigments are made from specific herbs
   
6. Herbs are therefore the source of all glyphs and are sourced two ways, either you pick them or someone else picks them and you buy them (either directly or indirectly via the AH)

OK this is basic stuff (and contains errors left in purposely because I havent started trading Ink of the Sea - which can be traded for any other ink) but I'm doing this for me right now - no one else is reading this so what do you care?

There is some variation in milling herbs for pigment but for the inks that you write glyphs with you generally get the following:

5x herbX --> 2 or 3x pigment Y
2x Pigment Y --> 1x Ink Z
1x Ink Z + Parchment --> Glyph Of Choice

There will always be a gamble when milling herbs sometimes they give you one pigment, sometimes 4, but thats life and over bulk its irelevant - its the same game you play with DEing.

One of the difficulties is that every step of the process creates goods which can be sold on the AH

But:

1. Inks can only be used to make inscription products
2. Pigments can only be used to make inks
3. Herbs can be used in a range of professions (but mostly inscription and alchemy)

So the market only has one pressure point - herbs. Alchemists compete with inscribers - herbalists win.

Where I am currently struggling is when LSW tells me that the glyph will cost 4g50s to make its works this out because it says how much does (Ink Z + Parchment) cost?

What I havent figured out yet is how to get LWS to tell me which is cheaper:

1. Buy herbs, mill for pigment, create ink,make glyph, sell
2. Buy pigment, create ink,make glyph, sell
3. Buy ink,make glyph, sell

So back to pen and paper for me - some rounded figures and an hours scribbling. I punched a few numbers and reached a few conclusions. Until the hunter gets to level 65 and can max out her inscribing I am going to focus on the low level end of the market - there's profit there and prices are cheaper. If I mess it up the hit wont be so bad

Therefore I am moving forward the experiment thus...

I am only making glyphs that are made with Midnight Ink. Midnight ink is made from Dusky Pigment and dusky pigment is milled from five low level herbs: mageroyal, stranglekelp, briarthorn, bruiseweed and swiftthistle.

According to LSW the glyph should cost me 2g to make. Ignoring the price of the parchment (which is 15 copper and therefore not overly important) - this gives us the following:

1. Glyph must cost 2g to make
2. Glyph is made from one Midnight Ink therefore: Buy all Midnight Ink that costs 2g or less on AH
3. Midnight Ink is made from two Dusty Pigments, therefore: Buy all Dusky Pigment that costs 1g or less on the AH
4. Assuming that a full stack of a herb gives 10 dusky pigment*, therefore a full stack gives 5 inks therefore: buy all stacks of herbs that cost 10g or less on AH
   

* Not actually true two give an average of 3 pigments per 5 herb, other three give an average of 2.5

I will collect until the weekend - the snatch function on Auctioneer has be set up to do the above and slowly supplies are building. I'm also recruiting herbalists in trade to go do some work for me - and I have a couple already. I realise these lackies will come and go as they level up *shrugs* but there will always be more coming through.

To be honest these prices are pretty close to market values - except for the herbs - only one of the five herbs has a market value of 50s a pop the other 4 are all higher - some more than double - but thats OK - the experiment will not be huge, 500-1000 glyphs I reckon

But we'll see. I'll just mill until the weekend and by then the glyphs I have for sale will have passed through the AH at least three times - and I can review everything before taking the next step.

Investment so far (including mistakes) - approx 400-600g
Sales so far - approx 500g