Google's Third-Age Flipping Guide - Everything you need to know!

Google's Third-Age Flipping Guide!


Contents:

I. What you need to know about Third-Age
II. Thought process behind flipping Third-Age
III. How to go about finding prices
IV. My personal routine
V. My quick tips


I. What you need to know about Third-Age

Third-Age equipment is brought into the game through people completing clue scrolls. They are fairly rare to receive as a reward and can only be found in Hard-Elite clues. In terms of stats they are not particularly special but they are often sought after due to their unique appearance and they display of wealth which comes along with wielding such equipment. This is a factor which should be considered when choosing which items to flip and how to go about flipping them.


II. Thought process behind flipping Third-Age

As mentioned briefly in the first section, Third-Age is often purchased by people who primarily wish to show off their wealth, due to there being no special reason in terms of Stats. This, in my opinion, is a key factor in the art of flipping Third-Age equipment, along with of course the low supply due to these items being a fairly rare clue scroll reward. As an example I will use our fine Smokin Dice hosts. These guys want to look very sharp and of course wealthy in order to come across as professional. This means that they want to choose gear that will bring across their wealth and professionalism with a single look at them. Third-Age gear (in particular Melee and Mage sets) are sometimes the sets that these hosts MAY choose to wear.

With that idea in your head, think about when you are wanting something on the Grand Exchange, let’s not talk about flipping for the moment but rather you need a weapon or supplies to go bossing or something. Often patience is not really on your agenda and you will throw a Buy offer in at any ridiculous price in order to get the instant buy. Well this may very well be the same situation with one of these hosts; they want to look good and they want it now! With items like this which have a relatively low supply this can mean that they may get an instant buy well above what is being seen as the current price.

Let’s look at the other end of the situation, how these items get into the game in the first place. They are rewards from clue scrolls which ANYONE can receive at the end of a trail. When someone is rewarded one of these items you would be able to see the “$” sign’s flash in their eyes immediately. They know the item is worth a fair amount, but not always will they take the time to check exactly what they COULD get for this item. In their state of excitement they may just try and throw it in to sell in the Grand Exchange instantly so they can get their hands on that money. This means that they could throw these items in at -5%, maybe -10% or who knows, maybe lower!

Knowing those two sides of the scenario is a key point I believe in successfully flipping Third-Age equipment for nice profits. You may want to aim to pick up those items thrown in by the Treasure hunters fairly cheap and then try and sell to those wealthy people who are desperate for the quick buy.


III. How to go about finding prices

There are a couple of methods you can use in order to figure out the current prices of Third-Age equipment.

I warn you now, DO NOT try and test prices with the instant buy and instant sell method as that’s how you get caught out by people like me who are looking for those people aiming for instant buys and sells.

The first method I will explain is through the use of the Runescape Official Forums. Forums>Marketplace>Treasure Trail Items is the path you will wish to follow when looking for these prices. In here you will find many threads posted by people trying to Buy and Sell various Treasure Trail items, many of which are Third-Age items. Many of the threads here will give no indication of the actual price of the item at that point and will only contain a post saying something along the lines of “PM me with offers” like so:




What you will be looking for is a thread that gives some kind of indication as to the current street price of the item (the price that it is ACTUALLY being traded at, often far off the Grand Exchange price). An example of such a thread can be seen here:



It should however be noted that in these threads prices can be quite strongly exaggerated by people trying to make good buys/sells which will really benefit them. Due to this you can expect threads BUYING an item to have fairly low prices and threads SELLING an item to have fairly high prices. This needs to be considered when you’re actually getting around to putting offers in.




Another method which I often use to flip Third-Age successfully involves knowing the current state of the item. When I say “state” I mean whether it is falling, rising or is fairly stable. This requires you to look up the graph of the item you are wishing to flip and identifying whether the item is likely to be above or below the market price in the Grand Exchange. Although Third-Age items usually have a “stepped” graph (which basically means that the item is not traded enough to be updated each GE update) you can still tell which general direction an item is heading, for example in this graph:



As you can see in this graph, the item has recently began to fall down after a fairly continuous rise since mid-June. This means that it is very likely that the item will be traded a fair amount BELOW the market Grand Exchange price, as is always the way with items that are crashing. This is the PERFECT situation in my opinion to flip Third-Age items. As this is when you can successfully low-ball on the items more frequently due to people panic selling the items. This involves putting in a buy offer quite a lot lower than the market Grand Exchange price in the hope that someone desperate to get rid of their item as they think it’s crashing. I have personally found this to be the most profitable method of flipping Third-Age, but that’s just a personal thing.


IV. My personal routine

This is what I do every time I intend to flip a piece of Third-Age gear. It’s a mix of figuring out the state of an item and the current prices that they are going for, as well as a daily routine I do that you could try yourself.

First of all I will check up on the graph of the item I wish to flip late-ish at night before I go to bed. I get an idea of whether or not it’s crashing.
-If I see that the item is crashing, I can skip the forum stage as I know that the price I will be able to pick up one of these items will not be clear to me from the threads there. I think of a reasonable “Low-ball” offer which is usually a few mil less than mid (in the case of items I do such as Melee gear, cheaper gear will require you to think of smaller margins).
-If I find that the item is either stable or rising I will check the forums to figure out what kind of range I should be aiming for with my buy offer.

So once I have figured out my buy prices and put in my offers I can head off to bed in the hope that I will pick up a buy overnight.

In the morning I will quickly hop on Runescape before I go to school. People who have jobs/other classes could do this as well I’m sure.
-If the item has bought and I know the item has been CRASHING I will put the sell offer in for maybe 500k-1m below mid, assuming that my low buy was for a price a good bit lower than that.
-If the item was bought and I know the item has been RISING or is STABLE I will decide how much is a safe margin to aim for. This varies from item to item and you should try and experiment and find these out for yourself through experience.
-If the item did not buy then, sure, it feels like a waste of time but at least no money was lost. You don’t get lucky every night and every merchant has nights when they just have no luck. You can cancel your offer and try again another time.

I will then go to school and hopefully by the time I return I will have made the sell.



V. My quick tips

Some of these are mentioned throughout the thread but they are important points.

1. When setting your margins, try not to be too unrealistic. Sure, with these items large margins certainly are possible due to reasons I have explained earlier in the thread, but you don’t really want to risk missing out on the sell due to aiming to high and then not being able to sell it off for profit.
2. Don’t panic and freak out if an item isn’t selling where you wanted it to. These items are slow flips that should be done over the space of the day if you want to get nice profit margins. Give it a little more time and if it’s still not selling try lowering the sell by a handful of K every now and again if you want rid of it.
3. When looking at the forums for price keep in mind that prices are exaggerated by people hoping to either get a really nice low buy or sell something at an extortionate price. A thread BUYING the item will normally have a price lower than the street price by a mil or two. Same goes for SELLING threads, their prices are usually a mil or two higher than the street price.

Will update this section if I feel anything else needs to be highlighted later.



If you have any questions about anything in this guide please feel free either to post your questions below, PM me on the forums or on IRC, I’ll be more than happy to help wherever possible.

Good luck flipping Third-Age!

Well written guide. I've tried flipping 3a before, mostly the robe top and bottom which worked well until the GE updated and they dropped ~2m =3 but I completely forgot there was a forum section on the RSOF.

Great guide, Google!
I will try flipping 3a w/ your method.

+rep for a nice helpful 3a guide, Good detail, and Good job adding in the pics!

Lucky wrote:Well written guide. I've tried flipping 3a before, mostly the robe top and bottom which worked well until the GE updated and they dropped ~2m =3 but I completely forgot there was a forum section on the RSOF.

Aha, you must've chosen a bad time to flip them if you were mid flip when the GE updated! Ouch!

Well obviously we can chat about this if you want to give it another go.

drakanisme wrote:Great guide, Google!
I will try flipping 3a w/ your method.

+rep for a nice helpful 3a guide, Good detail, and Good job adding in the pics!

Glad you found it helpful, hopefully you can get some experience with these methods and make a nice bit of money.

Just query me in IRC or PM me on the forums if you need any one-on-one help with this.

Google wrote:

Lucky wrote:Well written guide. I've tried flipping 3a before, mostly the robe top and bottom which worked well until the GE updated and they dropped ~2m =3 but I completely forgot there was a forum section on the RSOF.

Aha, you must've chosen a bad time to flip them if you were mid flip when the GE updated! Ouch!

Well obviously we can chat about this if you want to give it another go.

drakanisme wrote:Great guide, Google!
I will try flipping 3a w/ your method.

+rep for a nice helpful 3a guide, Good detail, and Good job adding in the pics!

Glad you found it helpful, hopefully you can get some experience with these methods and make a nice bit of money.

Just query me in IRC or PM me on the forums if you need any one-on-one help with this.

Well I had already done ~6 of em for 500k-1m profit and overnight it updated ><

Nice guide except for using gec >.>

*shudders*

Traitor!

Looks Great, Can't say I'm going to try it though; Looks too Complex for me. I Like Simple and Easy.

Tried doing Vamps the Other day as a Quick Buy/Sell and Yeah your right, worst possible thing to do. Lost 400k, Not a Biggie but I'm Glad i Didn't decide to go for a Higher valued 3rd age Item.

Obbyshaggz wrote:Looks Great, Can't say I'm going to try it though; Looks too Complex for me. I Like Simple and Easy.

Tried doing Vamps the Other day as a Quick Buy/Sell and Yeah your right, worst possible thing to do. Lost 400k, Not a Biggie but I'm Glad i Didn't decide to go for a Higher valued 3rd age Item.

Well if you ever want to try it I'm always glad to try and help out, I'd do anything I could to try and make it simpler for you.

Yeah, I've known people to lose multiple millions PCing Third-Age items in that way, especially when they are crashing...

[ADMIN] Divine wrote:Nice guide except for using gec >.>

*shudders*

Traitor!

Aha, I was wondering if someone would point this out!

Reason was that Merchz was actually down at the time I wrote this guide and was looking for the pictures, I had absolutely no access..

I use Merchz, I promise!

[ADMIN] Divine wrote:Nice guide except for using gec >.>

*shudders*

Traitor!

Well hang on a second.



They still think we are friends!

great clear guide! +1

Wow. Great guide mate, you've explained it perfectly. Moved

Kelly wrote:Great elaborate guide Maybe we could include this (link) in the Inactive section ? I'm sure people would like to learn xD

Sure, I'll post a little thread which will point them in this direction.

These items are some that should really be given a thought by anyone doing Inactive flipping so yeah, good idea!

Fantastic guide! With my new cash stack I can definitely use this now. Thanks you so much!

awesome guide google! i am sure a lot of people will benefit from it

I usually just pc them

I like buying one of the items, then selling it 5k under that price, then continuing to guess a good margin.

Never though of using the forums though o.O Guess that helps people who aren't sure of the items direction feel at ease that they know what's up.

When I looked through the forums I saw a lot of Third-age druidic gear. Have you ever tried these items before?

Thanks again Google!

TeamShades wrote:I like buying one of the items, then selling it 5k under that price, then continuing to guess a good margin.

Never though of using the forums though o.O Guess that helps people who aren't sure of the items direction feel at ease that they know what's up.

When I looked through the forums I saw a lot of Third-age druidic gear. Have you ever tried these items before?

Thanks again Google!

I guess you could use that method but the problem is with items such as this is that it's a lot easier to accidentally buy one that someone is trying to sell at a ridiculous price due to the low volume. That means that even if you get one at a price and try and sell 5k under, you might have gotten a bad deal and that nobody else will buy one from you at that price, that is until someone else like you goes to find an instant-buy but that could take some time.

I personally haven't tried any Druidic stuff. First off I don't like to tie up all my cash in one flip, which all druidic pieces would do. Also, it's very unpredictable and the RSoF are full of people trying to manipulate them to get sells/buys.

Google wrote:

TeamShades wrote:I like buying one of the items, then selling it 5k under that price, then continuing to guess a good margin.

Never though of using the forums though o.O Guess that helps people who aren't sure of the items direction feel at ease that they know what's up.

When I looked through the forums I saw a lot of Third-age druidic gear. Have you ever tried these items before?

Thanks again Google!

I guess you could use that method but the problem is with items such as this is that it's a lot easier to accidentally buy one that someone is trying to sell at a ridiculous price due to the low volume. That means that even if you get one at a price and try and sell 5k under, you might have gotten a bad deal and that nobody else will buy one from you at that price, that is until someone else like you goes to find an instant-buy but that could take some time.

I personally haven't tried any Druidic stuff. First off I don't like to tie up all my cash in one flip, which all druidic pieces would do. Also, it's very unpredictable and the RSoF are full of people trying to manipulate them to get sells/buys.

Got a vesta overnight using this, let's see how much profit I made. I'll check after school today. I could get any lowball offers though can you pm me the Arg profit margins on all 3a items?

Nice guide! I will give it a try!

Guide really looks great,thanks

Google could you post a list of the 3rd age items with their average margins?

Something like Austin did with his guide on flipping with friend chats
http://www.smokinelite.com/t65786-austin-s-guide-on-how-to-use-price-checking-fc-s

Yeh I want to get into 3rd age items but have no idea what their average margins are

great guide! thanks
I'm gonna give flipping 3a a go now.

Daxaal wrote:Google could you post a list of the 3rd age items with their average margins?

Something like Austin did with his guide on flipping with friend chats
http://www.smokinelite.com/t65786-austin-s-guide-on-how-to-use-price-checking-fc-s

Yeh I want to get into 3rd age items but have no idea what their average margins are

Google, do this?

EnterRiftSpc wrote:

Daxaal wrote:Google could you post a list of the 3rd age items with their average margins?

Something like Austin did with his guide on flipping with friend chats
http://www.smokinelite.com/t65786-austin-s-guide-on-how-to-use-price-checking-fc-s

Yeh I want to get into 3rd age items but have no idea what their average margins are

Google, do this?

Sorry just got around to seeing this.

Personally, I don't think it's a good/productive thing to do to spoon-feed margins, especially on items like Third-Age. It's all about personal experience and practice, getting to know how each of the items work. These items can have hugely different margins depending on if the item is crashing or if it's rising, for example some times I could make 15m on a Platebody other times only 5m or even less.

In short, practice makes perfect. You can try for smaller margins and then try getting bigger and bigger. The market on these allows some huge margins, you just need to know when you need to be patient and where the item is going.