500g + 48 days = 1 Million Gold? (Guide)

How did you get here?

From Gaia Guides & Resources	30.2%	[ 891 ]
A friend linked me.	11.8%	[ 349 ]
I searched some key words and found it.	10.6%	[ 312 ]
Redirection from Teh Hoarding Guild.	1.9%	[ 56 ]
Redirection from Solution to a Problem.	2.6%	[ 78 ]
Redirection from The Profiteers Guild.	2.2%	[ 65 ]
Redirection from The Newbie Support & Training Guild.	0.7%	[ 22 ]
Marketplace link/banner/other advertisement.	9.1%	[ 267 ]
By stalking Jace.	9.1%	[ 267 ]
I have no idea how I got here.	21.7%	[ 640 ]
Total Votes:			[ 2947 ]

[Jace Quin]

Exchanger/Vender Dictionary

Explanation of various common vending and exchanging terms and abbreviations.


AB:
Auto-buy. An auto-buy price is a frequently but not always absurdly inflated asking
price for an item (usually rare) that, if offered, will automatically win whatever is being auctioned or offered.

Average/ABP:
The average price an item is going for in the market place. The average
price is calculated only once a day using the sales from the previous day.

AI'd:
Artificially Inflated. Also known as Market Manipulation. This is when an individual or
individuals deliberately and grossly inflate the market price for an item in order to profit from the
inflation or just for the hell of it. You should be aware that this happens so you don't buy
something that has gone up 428% in the last day. Remember also: Market Manipulation does
not work. Nature abhors a vacuum.

B:
Buying.

Capital:
How much gold you have to spend or invest.

CI:
Chance Items. Also known as RIGs. Gaia's preferred name for the random item
generators they put out.

CS:
Cash Shop items (sometimes amusingly referred to as CSIs). These are the
non-evolving items that must originally be bought with Gaia cash.

DC:
Daily chance. This “freebie” can be collected at each of the six main pages (Home,
My Gaia, Shop, Forums, World, Games.) There is no risk involved in this chance, just the
chance of getting something small or something a little larger.

DIs:
Donation Items, also known as a Monthly Collectibles, are items released by Gaia
for $2.50 American and sold as limited edition one-month-only items.

EIs:
Evolving items. Limited edition items that originally sell for real money in Gaia’s Cash
Shop. They come in different generations (lower-number generations get poses before higher-
number generations if the item is still evolving) so be careful with these.

G:
Gold.

HTS:
Hard to sell.

K:
1k = 1,000 gold. Basically k stands for a comma and three zeros. 34k (34,000). 1000k = 1 Million.
It’s easier to type than a comma and three zeros, that’s why people use it. Once you stop
being confused by it, you’re going to love it.

Letters:
Thank You Letters are the items from which Monthly Collectibles (MCs/DIs/Donation Items)
come. These are released by Gaia for $2.50 American and sold as limited edition one-month-only items.

LMP/LBP:
Lowest cost listing in the marketplace for any particular item.

MCs:
Monthly Collectibles, also known as Donation Items, are items released by Gaia for
$2.50 American and sold as limited edition one-month-only items.

Mixed:
Mixed as in "mixed offers" or offers for expensive items that contain both items as well as gold.

MP:
Marketplace. Gaia’s e-bay-esque system for buying and selling. Sometimes people
use MP to describe the price of an item, by which they mean how much it usually goes for in the marketplace.

Premium:
Gaia's pretty word for things that must be purchased originally with real life money.

Pure:
Gaia Gold.

REI:
Rapid Evolving Item. Evolves more frequently than once per week.

RIG:
Random Item Generators also known as "magic boxes", rando-boxes, or Gaia's
preferred name Chance Item. Most RIGs are sold in the Cash Shop for around three weeks only.

S:
Selling.

T/O:
Taking offers.

Vend:
The Vend is Gaia’s marketplace. It can also be used as a verb describing a way of
earning gold. This method involves combing the “vend” for good deals, buying them, and then re-selling them.

W:
Wanted.

[Jace Quin]

Item Types.
What to buy, what not to buy.
Short & Long-term investing tips.

Explanation of the various item types. What to buy and not to buy. Which ones are good for hoarding and in what time frame.



Before I get into specific things let me be general for a moment. The easiest way
to tell which items are worth buying and which are garbage is to read the graphs.
To read the graphs simply look the item in question up in the market place and
click the 'show graphs' button. It will load two graphs left is Daily Average Price
Over Time and right is Daily Total Units Over Time. You can toggle between
one month and one year's worth of time for both graphs. If a graph shoes that
an item sells few units each day (less than twenty) it's not going to vend quickly.
If there has been a recent sharp rise or drop in the price of an item I do not
recommend buying it.
If it sells less than ten units a day you want to get a better deal (5% less than
you usually pay for an item at that price) when buying it than usual to make
up for the fact that it will take you longer to sell. If it sells five units a day or
less I would not advise buying it unless you are not using more than 10% of
your pure to do so (you want to keep your gold moving after all) and you
should only get it if you're getting a really good deal (10%+ less than you
usually pay). If it sells less than two units a day I do not recommend buying it.



RIGs
Officially known as CIs or Chance Items but also referred to as "rando-boxes" and "magic
boxes" they are Gaia’s random item-generating bags and boxes such as Gee Boi Turbo,
Crystal Overdrive, and Love Charm just to name a few. I like to call them magic boxes
because, as advertised, they can make you insanely rich but not by opening them.
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 80k and turning around and selling it in a month
or two for 120k are very good. So, why would you go for the extremely risky profit when
there’s an even more profitable “sure bet?” Well, I sure wouldn't. I've made millions and
millions of gold on these things. Plus, they are very short term. No need to hoard for
months and months or even years with these. I'd buy some of every batch (they come out
monthly) if possible.


MCs/DIs/Letters
Gaia’s monthly collectible items. They don’t go through a lot of drastic changes in price after
about a month or so of being released but they will naturally inflate because there is a fixed
amount of them. The more popular a MC the better idea it is to hoard it because it will go up
faster and be more profitable. Be aware that MCs take a long time to profit from. No less than six months.


EIs
Evolving items. Picking an evolving item can be tricky. How much G-cash it costs, who
the artist is and the subject matter all have a huge bearing on whether it will be popular and gain
a lot of profit. A great deal of research may need to be put into this to see a good return. The
ten-dollar EIs will always do well. The seven-fifty ones can do well. The others are kind of
wildcard and mostly I wouldn't bother with them.


CS
Cash Shop items. 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. An example of a Cash Shop item that was still in the Cash Shop but did make
a good hoard were the Bunny/Chicky Hoodies but those were an exception and fall under the
"seasonal" hoarding category. However, you may not want to hold onto Cash Shop items
forever as Gaia can and will re-release them in RIGs or bundles. Once you are happy with your
profit sell.


Event Items
Events items are the items given out for completing tasks during seasonal events. I suggest
buying Halloween and Christmas items in the Spring and Summer and Valentines & Easter
items in the Summer and Fall for hoarding. 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. Another thing
about Event Items: Never buy right before, during, or right after the event. You will lose gold or
you will have to wait a long time to profit.


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.


Rares/RIG Items
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. However, Rares/RIG Items are not hoardable. Not the Bustier that came
from the Pink Gift Box and not the shiny new item that just came out of the latest RIG. The
old-style boxes and trunks such as the Pink Gift Box have been around forever and are
continually released so the items inside them are continually released. And as for RIG items
there are instances in which hoarding these items has been profitable but because Gaia
enjoys releasing many of the popular items again and again you're much more likely to lose
money. I therefore do no recommend this.


Luck Key/Lucky Chests & Lucky Chest Items
A strange RIG-like non-RIG with a limited selection of items inside, the selection changes
periodically. No. Do not bother. These will never profit from hoarding. Not ever. Not the keys
and not the items.


Aquarium Items
Fish and other items that go inside your aquarium. Neither aquarium fish nor decorations are
good hoarding material. Do not try to hoard them.


Commons
These are the items you can buy in Gaia stores from the NPCs. There are an infinite number
available so they have no hoarding potential.


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.


Prize & Joy
The items that can be obtained by trading in tickets at prize and joy. They have no hoarding potential.


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. These have no hoarding potential. However, these items can be used in
large quantities to craft low skill level but valuable Alchemy items worth much more than the
sum of the components.


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. Theoretically they may be worth hoarding since
there are fewer and fewer all the time but they're such a bother to sell they're not worth the effort.


Recipes
A special monster drop or prize for quest completion these recipes tell you what is needed to
create a zOMG crafted item. They have no hoarding potential.


zOMG Drops
Ingredients that must be used in the creation of recipes. They have no hoarding potential. However, these items can be used in large quantities to craft low skill level but valuable Alchemy
items worth much more than the sum of the components.


zOMG-crafted items
Items crafted from recipes and ingredients obtained in zOMG. These have no hoarding potential.
Some of these items are used in the creation of Alchemy items which may be worth more than
the sum of its components. Do your research.


Overseer Items
Things given to you by the overseer. All of the Regalia and Armor, etc. These have no hoarding
potential or value. Do not bother.


Alchemy Formulae
These can be obtained from the Alchemist's Case, Events, and other areas of Gaia and are used in the creation of Alchemy items. They have no hoarding potential. Some Alchemized items are
worth more than the components necessary to create them. Do your research before crafting
Alchemized Items.


Alchemy Components
These can be obtained from Daily Chance, Philosopher's Cache, zOMG, Fishing, Towns, Games, Golden Magical Giftbox, Enki's Catch, Events, and other areas of Gaia. These have no hoarding potential. Some Alchemized items are worth more than the components necessary to create
them. Do your research before crafting Alchemized Items.


Alchemized Items
These are the items created through Alchemy. They have no hoarding potential. However, some
Alchemized Items are significantly more valuable than the sum of their components and may be
lucrative to craft. Other Alchemized Items are worth much less than the sum of their components
so do you research carefully before crafting Alchemized Items.

[Jace Quin]