MCs/DIs/Letters: Gaia’s monthly collectible items. These are good for both
short and long-term investment. They don’t go through a lot of drastic changes in
price after about a month or so of being released but they do tend to naturally inflate
as there are a fixed amount of them. These are a very good thing to buy as they
come in a range of prices from 5k-millions of gold. Although the 5-50k range is the
best profit-wise for short-term investment. Percentage of gold-to-return tells us that
smaller MCs are better for profit as a general rule.
EIs: Evolving items. These can be good for both short and longer-
term profit. If you plan on keeping a EI for less than a day to a few weeks then the
currently evolving items are better. If you’re only keeping it for a day until it sells then
treat it like a MC and offer 90% of the LMP and then sell it. For a longer, better gain,
wait until the second generation of an item has come out (this helps you determine if
it’s good to invest in) but also the second generation tends to be cheaper (because
there’s no gold added to the price for snob value) but still evolves right after the first
generation. Buy one or several and wait three or four generations. Always sell for a
good profit now and not a maybe-better profit later.
CS: Cash Shop items. These are good for short and long-term investment.
Older (but still available to be bought) CS items have a stable price (due to the
relatively stable cash to gold ratio) and a relatively steady demand. Treat them just
like small MCs. Still available CS items are not good for hoarding unless (as with the
many item generating “magic boxes” they like to put out) you know they are going to
be discontinued after a short period of time. Cash Shop items that have already been
discontinued or are going to be soon make for good long-term investments. Between
March of 2008 when they were discontinued and January of 2009 the Magical School
Girl Uniforms went from 6-7k each to 20-40k each (varying by color). That’s just an
example.
Rares: Rares are the many items that can be obtained only from
specific ones of Gaia’s many item generating “Magic boxes.” I refer to the item
generating bags/boxes as “Magic boxes” because not only were the original item-
generating boxes called “Magical Gift Boxes” but there is the statistically small chance
that opening a so-called magic box can make you instantly pixel-rich, as if by magic.
But back to the original trend of my thoughts. Rares can be bought and sold on the
short term but do not make good hoarding material.
“Magic Boxes”: Gaia’s random item-generating bags and boxes. First rule:
Never open them. Never. I mean it. Statistically, (and yes I am about to get all
mathy on you, learn to deal with it) the odds of getting an item worth more than the
box you opened aren’t great. The odds of getting an item worth enough more than
the boxes you opened with shitty items in them to cover your losses are even worse.
So just don’t do it. The odds of buying a recent box for 30k and turning around and
selling it in a month or two for 30k are very good. So, why would you go for the
extremely risky profit when there’s an even more profitable “sure bet.” Even if you
don’t want to hoard for any length of time older “Magic Boxes” have a relatively stable
price and relatively decent demand and can be bought and sold much like any other
profitable item.
Event Items: Event items can be good for very short, sorta short, and extremely
long-term investing. Event items that go for a few hundred gold can be good to buy
and sell. A lot of people vend with them. Because there are a lot of them and they are
cheap there is a constant supply and a constant demand. Buy a chicky for a 100g and
sell it for 300g. You’ve now made about 200g. It’s not much at once but it is easy and
fast. For “sorta short” investing I suggest buying Halloween and Christmas items in
the Spring and Summer and Valentines & Easter items in the Summer and Fall. Even
buying in the few months leading up to an event and then selling off quickly in the few
weeks or days before and during an event can bring tremendous profit. Because profit
is all about supply and demand. The supply remains relatively the same but during an
event the demand goes way up so the price goes way up. Extremely long-term invest
of a few years is, as with anything, a good way to make gold. Another thing about
Event Items: Never buy right before, during, or right after the event. You will loose gold
or you will have to wait a long time to profit. End of story.
Quest items: Not items that you quest for but items that come from promotional
NPC quests. These are a lot like event items except that they aren’t worth any more
at a particular time of year. A lot of them get made so there is a very large supply and
typically not much demand. You can often buy them for less than ten gold each. You’re
not likely to make any immediate profit from them but pick up a dozen at one gold
each and six months or a year later when you’re having an inventory sale you sell
them for a hundred gold each. High percentage of profit even though it takes a long
time and doesn’t seem like much.
Commons: These are the items you can buy in Gaia stores from the NPCs. If
you’re buying them to keep cruise the marketplace for a day or two to find a good deal
on them. You can often get them for 65-80% of the store price. Which is a good deal
for you. There isn’t any real, as far as I’m concerned, vending/exchanging way to profit
from these unless you buy them for below the sell-back price (50% of the original price)
and sell them back to the store. This is possible but not necessarily typical. The other
way I have seen people do it is to buy very popular commons such as Leather Belts
(they come in Red, White & Black) or Terrycloth Tube-tops for about 60% of store price
and selling them in the Market for 80% of store price. To me this is not worth the effort.
There is a low margin of profit and many commons are not in high demand and so take
a long time to sell. You might invest your 1k and earn 600g but it will take you three
days to do it where as if you’d invested in something else you could be at 50k in three
days from 1k. Seriously. I’ve done it. So can you.
House Items: Most house items can be bought from NPC stores and therefore
technically fall under the category of “commons.” Except the thing about house items
is that there is even less demand for them. Don’t bother with them at all. There is
no point.
Game items: Game items are items such as ink, bugs, flowers, “trash”, any items
received from fishing, fish bait, tokens, tickets, credits, pinball power-ups, ELF
powerups, and anything else I might be forgetting along that vein. There are many ways
to earn gold from these. Combing the marketplace for bundles of game items being
sold for exceptionally little per item (listings for game items show a different price under the
unit price column, pay attention to that column) is a sure way to earn. There is no long-
term gain from this and the short-term gain isn’t much either but it’s a cheap way to start out.
Rings: Rings come from the zOMG game and due to the developers changing
their minds there are few rings floating around that are not soulbound. They come in
different Charge Levels (the higher the charge the more they’re worth) and since some
people still want to buy their way through the game, they are very expensive. The
demand isn’t crazy high and buying low charge rings and charging them up is not the
cash cow you might hope it is. It’s a lot of work for a lot less profit than if you’d spent
that time on other things. My end point: don’t bother.
Recipes: While not good for hoarding many zOMG-crafted items are worth much more
than the recipes and ingredients that go into them. If you see someone giving away a ton of
recipes- grab some or if you have some from playing the game yourself, there may be a
"valuable" recipe among them. With a small investment to collect ingredients you could make a
very good profit on it. Be careful, though. Some zOMG-crafted items are worth very little and
wouldn't be worth the effort. Be sure to thoroughly research before diving in.
zOMG ingredients: Ingredients that must be used in the creation of recipes.
Again, not the cash cow you might hope. Too much effort, not enough gain. Although,
much like game items, if you see a huge bundle in the vend for cheap you may as
well buy it.
zOMG-crafted items: Short term investment isn’t a bad idea. Just the same as
buying any other 10k item for 8k and selling it in an hour for 1.8k profit. Long term
investment in recipe items is a bad idea except, maybe, in the case of limited-time
recipes such as the zOMG Ribbon and Reindurr but we do not know (at this point in
time) whether or not those recipes will be re-released next Christmas. If they aren’t
then it’d be a good investment but if they are re-released then you’d lose gold.
Aquarium Items: Fish and other items that go inside your aquarium. Fish are a
horrible long-term investment but generally not a bad short-term investment of buying
them for cheap in the Exchange and selling them off. As far as aquarium items go
there's more demand than there is for house items but, again, not a good long-term
investment. If you're planning on selling these items you should buy them for lower
than 90% of market price. Try 75-80% and that should be okay.
Overseer Items: Things give to you by the overseer. All of the Regalia and
Armor, etc. Bad investments. Don't bother. The single item worth bothering with is
Titan's Legacy (Seed.) Buy a dozen of these for a 100g or whatever and the next time
an evolution rolls around (whenever that might be) and the price spikes up again you
can sell them off fast for a high percentage of profit.
Luck Key: The Luck Key (necessary to obtain an item if a Lucky Chest shows up
in your aquarium or on a landing page) is not a good idea for hoarding. You might
make a profit if you see one for cheap in the Vend and sell it quickly but it's not good for
long-term profit because they're still available in the Cash Shop. Items that are unique
to the Lucky Chest such as Cecil and Pirate Sando's Vest are also terribly for hoarding.
There just keep being more and more of them so you'd only lose gold. Don't bother. 
