wow Gold Making: The Black Market Auction House

[Peelyon 416]

This week Peelyon takes a look at the Black Market Auction House and how you should try and grab a few bargains to trade in Legion.

 

Introduction

 

The Black Market Auction House (BMAH) is a separate auction house situated in Nagrand in Draenor.  It's location is at (54,14) at the Ring of Blood (northern part of the map).  Without going into too much detail it was introduced by Blizzard as a way of trying to remove some gold from the economy to try to help with inflation in the game.

 

This auction house offers a wide range of items, some of which are extremely rare to obtain and also includes some items that have been previously removed from the game.

 

Rather than trying to list all of the items here, it is best to take a look at Wowhead's guide which you can find here.

 

You may or may not be aware that some of the items that are listed on the BMAH are actually trade-able.  This means that it is possible to pick up some great items that you can then resell on the regular auction house or trade with other players so it can be a great source of gold if you manage to pick up an item cheaply.  

 

It has been recently announced that there will be an increase on the current gold cap.

The current cap (999,999g) has been increased to 9,999,999g, so just under 10 million gold.  

 

This has been confirmed by @WarcraftDevs on Twitter.

 

 

@Elvinelol got straight to the point and asked if this would apply to Black Market transactions as well (which was left unanswered by the dev team).  However it is safe to assume that the "new" BMAH will accept bids up to this new amount. 

 

I feel this will have a huge impact on the prices of the more "lucrative" items.  Bids could potentially reach millions of gold in Legion.  Whether you are trying to "make" gold by buying an item to re-sell, or you wish to purchase an item yourself and therefore "save" some gold it may be worth the effort doing so before Legion hits!

 

 

The Basics

 

New items appear on the BMAH each day and these are randomly generated.  The number of listings each day is also random and I have seen this range from just one or two items, all the way to ten.  This means it is impossible to predict what items are available on a day to day basis.  I have yet to see a duplicate item available on the same day, however it is possible for items to be listed on consecutive days.

 

 

Bidding

 

There are a few important things to note while bidding for items on the BMAH.  Firstly, bids are non refundable, so you must be prepared to pay for the item if you confirm your bid.  I have known a number of guildies to get "stuck" with an item they never truly wanted in the hope they could drive up the price, so bid with caution.

 

Although you can manually input a bid, it MUST be at least a 5% increase on the previous bid.

 

Therefore if an item price is currently at 10,000g, the minimum you would be able to bid will be 10500g.  You are free to manually bid anything above 10500g (so for example you could bid 12k instead).

 

This 5% increase is extremely important.  Although the BMAH will accept bids up to 999,999g (so current gold cap) you can actually make a "maximum" bid of 954,000g.  At this amount it is not possible for another player to outbid you given the 5% rule.  It's a common mistake made regularly by players who are in a rush to claim an item, so don't fall into this trap and save yourself a whopping 45k!  

 

Capping

 

Depending on the population of your server, you may find that items are almost "instantly" capped to 954k.  This is due to the fact that players are waiting at the BMAH ready for the new items to be posted.  By making an almost instant bid at this value they ensure it is won before a large portion of the player base will have even managed to check the listings.

 

For EU servers at least the items reset at 23.30 each evening (server time)!

 

For US (I don't play US servers) I have been told it is 1-2am EST.  If anyone could confirm that would be great!

 

Auction Duration

 

As the auctions do not have a buyout option making a note of the "timer" can be important if you are wanting to make a regular bid.  When you make a bid on the normal auction house, each bid adds to the current time left on the auction.  It is not 100% clear if this is the case with the BMAH and I have on occasion had Short timers (which should be 30 minutes) last for only 25 minutes.  A number of players choose to leave it till the last minute to make a bid in the hope of snatching the item at the end of the auction, so if there is something you really want it's best to hang around until it is fully completed.

 

Prices can escalate quickly so ensure you take a toon who has plenty of gold in your bags so you can make consective bids without having to reclaim your failed bids from the mailbox (which is just outside).

 

BMAH in your Garrison

 

 

Waterlogged Manifest is an item that can be obtained from a rare naval mission from your Garrison Shipyard.  It requires you to complete a few quests that will eventually reward you with the NPC Zhang Yeoh.  She allows you to view the items available on the BMAH but NOT bid on them.  This means it is possible to check if any of the items of interest to you before you travel to Nagrand.  This is really useful for alliance players that do not have portals to Nagrand readily available but remember, if you are interested in capping items it is best to be waiting at the BMAH itself to bid right away!  The time it takes you to travel will more than likely result in missing your bid.

 

 

Trade-able Items

 

 

There is a fairly wide range of items that can be purchased to re-sell from the BMAH.  This includes pets, mounts and recipes.

 

As far as I am aware all the toys that are available such as Ogre Pinata and Goblin Gumbo Kettle are all Bind on Pickup and sadly cannot be traded between players.

 

Although not listed on the Wowhead link above, there are a number of recipes that are added to the BMAH.  These are trade-able but the majority of these are sadly not worth the starting bid price of 1k.  You will more than likely be able to obtain them from the regular auction house for a cheaper amount if you do wish to learn them for your own personal collection.

 

 

Pets

 

If you don't have a lot of gold to spend, pets are your best way at making gold through the BMAH.  There is generally at least one pet on each day, and you can pick them up relatively cheaply.  

 

 

Argent Tournament Pets:

 

The Argent Tournament (located in Icecrown) offers a pet for each faction for 40x Champion's Seal.  For servers which are heavily weighted towards one faction you can get a great return for selling a pet from the opposing faction, as there will be very few players able to purchase them from the other side.

 

Pets such as Dun Morogh Cub and Tirisfal Batling are among my best selling pets at the moment.  Also the Enchanted Broom is used in my method for power leveling your battle pets (which you can find here if you are interested).

 

 

Raid Pets:

 

A number of pets that drop in Mist of Pandaria raids such as Throne of Thunder and Siege of Orgrimmar are also available.

 

Droplet of Y'Shaarj and , Son of Animus (amongst others) can reach values upwards of 50k on the regular auction house, so it is worth keeping an eye out for these.

 

 

World Drops:

 

These can include each of the whelpling pets and also extremely rare drops such as the Cat Carrier (Black Tabby).  As you can see from the picture above the Razzashi Hatchling is also available.

 

 

Trading Card Game (TCG):

 

Dragon Kite, Rocket Chicken, Hippogryph Hatchling (amongst others).

 

If you have a little bit more gold available these pets can bring in fairly substantial returns.  On EU in particular these prices can achieve upwards of 200k for certain TCG pets (you guys in the US have greater access to the physical cards than us lot across the pond!)

 

 

 

Regardless of your region these pets aren't owned by a large percentage of the player base.  So keep a lookout for these in particular and hope you can sneak a cheap bid in towards the end of the auction!

 

As a final note, there are a few pets (such as other cat carriers) that aren't worth much gold at all.  Regardless of the pets you wish to bid on it is best to research pet prices in your particular region and server.

 

I use www.wow-pets.com to take a quick snapshot of pet prices on the servers that I am active on.  It is a great resource especially if you are new to trading battle pets and are unsure of prices!

 

 

Mounts

 

 

I won't be listing any of the Bind on Pickup mounts, but as mentioned above if you are considering spending a large sum of gold on one of these it may be in your interest to get one sooner rather than later!  Will the gold cap increasing mounts such as Invincible's Reins could easily surpass the 1 million mark.

 

There are two trade-able mounts available on the BMAH.  These are both from the Trading Game Card.  Wooly White Rhino and X-51 Nether-Rocket X-TREME. If you have the gold available I would recommend that you try and purchase them whenever and wherever possible (just be prepared to pay the cap for them to avoid disappointment!)

 

Although I cannot predict the future I expect as time goes on these mounts will be traded in the millions of gold.  Again prices vary quite a lot depending on your region and just like the TCG pets, prices are a lot higher in the EU due to the fact we don't tend to trade much in the actual card game items (plus the differences in the WoW Token values when comparing the real currency values).

 

On my server these mounts are already achieving values of 1.5million gold or more.

 

Obviously it requires a HEAVY investment upfront and therefore potentially a lot of risk as well, so please only bid at your own risk and as with any item, don't over invest your available gold!

 

Unclaimed Black Market Container

 

 

The Unclaimed Black Market Container is the gambler's box.  In a nutshell it has a chance to obtain ANY item that appears on the BMAH.  This includes all of the Tier 3 armour pieces and mounts that you already potentially own.

 

Prices on my server range upwards of 150k at this moment in time so it is quite a substantial amount of gold to risk when there is a high probability that you can acquire an item that is utterly useless.

 

To this date I have purchased one box (at a price of 159k SMH).  Thankfully I got pretty lucky and obtained Smoldering Egg of Millagazor, which although I wasn't able to sell, was a lot better than my friend who has had a number of horror items (including a piece of Mage Tier 3 on his hunter for 132k, and paying a whopping 172k for a Giant Sewer Rat, which even with my pet selling skills would struggle to recoup more than 15k).

 

If you fancy a flutter and you can get them cheap enough it may be worth your while, but a massive *WARNING* from myself!  Hopefully you have a lot more luck than my friend! (I just want to note it was actually a friend and not a "friend" aka me )!

 

 

The Darkmoon Ticket Fanny Pack

 

 

The Darkmoon Ticket Fanny Pack contains a random number of Darkmoon Prize Ticket.  Wowhead seems to list the number of tickets ranging from 400-500, however the comments section seems to have ranges from 300 upwards.  On the two occasions I managed to buy one they have both been upwards of 400 tickets.

 

These tickets are used to purchase a number of items at the faire itself.  The replica gear is selling VERY well right now and I always manage to sell the pets without too much problem at all.

 

i will be making a gold guide to the Darkmoon Faire at some point in the future so don't want to try and go into too much detail here, but if you can get this for under 50k then you should be able to turn a profit very comfortably by purchasing replica gear alone.  Search your auction house for "replica" items to see your current prices!

 

 

Wrap Up

 

I hope you've found this guide useful.  I appreciate that the timing of the auctions may not be in everyones favour (due to real life commitments etc) and that the gold values of a lot of the items may be out of a lot of players reach.  However it can be possible to snag a bargain every now and again.

 

Let me know of any of your successes or any *gulp* horrors from the Unclaimed containers!