Gems = Glyphs

I've long believed Blizzard really likes the way the glyph market works and wants the gem market to work in a similar way. On many servers the rare cataclysm gem market is already almost as bad as the glyph market with rare cuts selling for little more than raw gems (sometimes even less!) and only inferno rubies selling for much more than vendor price.

Everyone is expecting to make a killing on gems when 4.2 drops. I believe the patch will cause a short term spike in gem prices but it won't last very long.

• 36 slot gem bags and cut gems stacking to 20 will make camping a whole lot easier
• everyone is stockpiling gems for the patch
• raw uncommon gem vendor prices are going down lowering the floor price for gems and ore even further
• there's a virtually unlimited supply of raw materials

So what's going to happen when all those JC's stockpiling gems log on Tuesday and start posting gems with full stacks of every cut in their bags?

The way I see it is someone will try to reset prices and the campers will go into an undercutting frenzy the likes of which we've never seen before. It won't be long before prices go right back down and stay there. Inferno Rubies might have enough demand to keep prices up for a week or so but that's about it.

My conclusion is there probably is a fair bit of gold to be made on patch day and for at least a few more days after but it'll mostly be in Inferno Rubies and it won't be the huge killing many are expecting. I'm expecting about a week of very good Inferno Ruby prices, 2-3 weeks of somewhat higher than usual Inferno Ruby prices and 2-3 days of moderately higher prices for the best cuts of other colors.

Here's a list of the gems that should have the most demand.

Bold Inferno Ruby
Brilliant Inferno Ruby
Delicate Inferno Ruby

Solid Ocean Sapphire
Rigid Ocean Sapphire

Purified Demonseye

Reckless Ember Topaz
Potent Ember Topaz

Quick Amberjewel
Fractured Amberjewel

Puissant Dream Emerald