wow Gold Making: Inks and the Ink Trader

[Peelyon 416]

A fairly unconventional way of making gold is with the ink vendor: just through trading various inks you can yield a huge return for your investment! Well worth checking out if you have never used it before.

Requirements: None (although the ability to craft your own Warbinder's Ink is preferred)
Difficulty: Easy
Time to Sell: Long
Potential Profit: High
 
A great money maker for a number of years has been through trading inks.  Your first thought may be "What?! Really?!" and the answer is YES!  There are still a large number of players that don't know they exist in game, and / or can't obtain or craft the max level ink required.  
 

The principles

Inscription requires various inks to be able to craft glyphs and other items.  To help players obtain the various inks Blizzard added Ink Traders into the game so you could trade 1 current expansion ink for 1 other ink (10:1 for rare inks). It meant that players didn't have to farm or buy herbs from previous expansions to make inks and produce glyphs that are still used by max level players.
 
Inks can be traded at a number of inscription suppliers in capital cities.  A few examples are:
 
Jessica Sellers - Dalaran
Sarana Damir - Stormwind
Sinzi Sparkscribe - Orgrimmar
 
This means that 1xWarbinder's Ink can be traded for various other inks such as Jadefire Ink and Celestial Ink

   

So by simply going to these traders and swapping 1xWarbinder's Ink you can obtain all of the inks that are used to craft glyphs.
 
*Note* I do not trade in rare inks.  Although there is perhaps a small potential in making gold through these inks, due to the trades being 10:1 it would more than likely be better to actually farm / mill the relevant herb that produces them.
 

If it's so easy how can it be used to make gold?!

Like I mentioned above, not every player knows that these traders exist.  Also, for non scribes and players leveling their profession without Draenor Inscription it can be difficult to obtain Warbinder's Ink in order to trade them.  Also, do not underestimate how lazy some players can be.  There are players out there that would prefer to quickly run to the auction house and buy enough inks to skill up or craft the glyphs they are missing, than having to visit an ink trader.  
 
Current herbs (especially in Warlords of Draenor) are easy to obtain and cheap to buy on your auction house.  Working with my own current server figures it roughly costs me ~5g to craft my own Warbinder's Ink.  I then trade these in and sell all of the other inks for ~50g each.  So for a stack of 20 Warbinder's Ink it costs around 100g to create and I then sell stacks of 20 Jadefire Ink / Celestial Ink etc for 1000g.
 
Thanks to mass milling it is now even easier to create your own pigments and craft your own inks.  A lot of the crafting I do is while I am AFK - making 1000's of pigments and inks at a time while I am completely away from my computer.
 
The only real drawback is the length of time the inks can take to sell.  It can take a week or more for some of my auctions to sell therefore you will be required to relist them on numerous occasions.  However when they do sell the profit is well worth the wait!  On occasions (like the photos below) a player has bought my entire stock as they power level the profession, so ensure you have a range of inks on the auction house!
 
I hope you enjoyed the above - please feel free to comment below as to whether you currently use this method or not.  If you do try it out and manage to make some sales then come back and let me know and if possible even post a picture!! It's great hearing success stories from other players!
 
Good luck and get inking!
 
Here are a few photos of my recent Ink sales!  It's worth noting that I also sell Warbinder's Inks at 1000g a stack too in case other's are wanting to use the ink trader and these sell too!

[falrinth 2]

There are actually 12 ink traders in game (though only 3 are labeled as such):

 

http://www.wowhead.com/item=39469/moonglow-ink#sold-by

[Peelyon 416]

Thank you for the heads up I didn't even realise.  Shows how little I get out of Stormwind! I've updated accordingly.

[mnime 17]

Ok wow thanks, this one's great.

I knew the npc that trades inks exists but I didn't know the inks actually have demand on AH, I mean the demand is pretty low but still. 

For example on my server Celestial Ink is around "1 estimated sold per day" but after 72 hours I posted different inks and got good results. Thumbs up.

[Peelyon 416]

Did you manage a few sales then mnime? If so that's great!  You're right about the demand being low, but the relatively low auction posting price means you can relist without too many worries.   

[spikemon 2]

Looks kind of easy to be honest. I'm really going to try it when I have the chance. Great tutorial!

[Wrekful 2]

There are actually 12 ink traders in game (though only 3 are labeled as such):

 

http://www.wowhead.com/item=39469/moonglow-ink#sold-by

 

 

/Cheers

 

Will definitely look into that.. like many players I tough Inscription was dead :(

As I am looking for ways to pile on gold this will be a good way my bank is full of WoD herb.

[Peelyon 416]

Looks kind of easy to be honest. I'm really going to try it when I have the chance. Great tutorial!

 

Just be aware that it can take time to sell.  Start off with maybe a 100 of each Ink and see how they go.  Stacks of 20 seem to work best and ensures you don't end up with huge expired mails in your mailbox.

[Peelyon 416]

 

There are actually 12 ink traders in game (though only 3 are labeled as such):

 

http://www.wowhead.com/item=39469/moonglow-ink#sold-by

 

 

/Cheers

 

Will definitely look into that.. like many players I tough Inscription was dead

As I am looking for ways to pile on gold this will be a good way my bank is full of WoD herb.

 

 

 

Inscription (although I am aware there are changes in Legion) is one of the few professions I am pushing really hard at the moment.  Don't be afraid of milling your entire stock of herbs.  Even if you can't shift all of the ink you can use the pigments to make Warpaints -> Card of Omens.  They will sell regardless of the expansion.

[mnime 17]

Did you manage a few sales then mnime? If so that's great!  You're right about the demand being low, but the relatively low auction posting price means you can relist without too many worries.   

Indeed, need to be patient, and as you mentioned the deposit for inks are low and you can post them twice or even more if needed. If you farm the herbs the profit is noticeable, which I did.

I usually go for long and hard ways to earn gold but lately I've been a little lazy and this one really worked for me. Cheers.

[gregorypoet 2]

Hello. I really like your posts. I have a question: You mention something about "mass milling" and being able to craft while AFK. Is this an add-on or program that will allow you to do this like COMPLETELY AFK, (like when you're at work), or is it something like clicking "mass mill" and then walking away from the computer? 

 

I'm new to inscriptions and milling and the like, forgive my ignorance. 

[Peelyon 416]

Hey no need to apologise!

 

There are recipes such as Recipe: Mass Mill Fireweed for each of the Warlords of Draenor herbs.

 

They can be purchased for 20xCerulean Pigment from the herb trader in your garrison (so you will need to wait until it is herb trader day) and allow you to "craft" the mills (hence the going AFK part).

 

Thanks for the feedback on my posts and good luck with your gold making!

[Peelyon 416]

Just wanted to add that even though there have been some changes to the number of glyphs required for Legion I am still managing to sell a few inks here and there so it is still viable to make some gold using this method.