In Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO) one of the greatest ways to earn money is the auction house.  It is actually fairly easy to earn several gold pieces without too much effort if you know how to use the auction house well, and what items are valuable in the auction house.

While a large amount of people use the auction house, an even greater number do not use the auction house well, or even at all.  I personally was constantly surprised by what items I discovered were valued and not, in the auction house.

 It takes a deep understanding of how the game economy of LOTRO works, and how the auction house works, to make money quickly in the auction house.  Simply auctioning everything you have will earn you money, but you need to understand what is valuable and what rate you should auction things at to make money.
Determining the Value of An Item The thing to think about when you are auctioning items is the difficulty and cost of making the item you are auctioning, the usefulness of the item, the number of these items that are already available, and the cost already listed in the auction house for the same item, and the time it takes to make the item.

The Cost of Acquisition:  Some items are just hard to get.  Yarrow root is a good example.  Yarrow root does not have a lot of use, it commonly is used to make gold dye.  However, you cannot grow yarrow root, you can only find it either as a farmer (using the crop radar) or as treasure.  Ironically, yarrow root is more expensive than gold dye, even though it costs more to make gold dye than yarrow root.

Usefulness of An Item: This probably the easiest thing to judge.  One of the most useful items in the game is food.  Food heals damage, power or both at once, something everyone wants, regardless of class or race.  Heavy armor is used only by a fraction of the classes in LOTRO. So food will be more valuable.  On the other hand, food is single use, meaning that if one uses food, a constant supply is necessary, while armor will last (if it is good) for several levels.  It is a complex thing to figure out how useful an item is, but when deciding how to price an object, it is a good idea to think about this.

Supply of Product Being Sold:  Craft items are almost always more available than other items.  Therefore, craft items are sold for less than a similar item that is not available except when found as treasure.  Interestingly, people know more about craft items, so often people will search for these items rather than browse or search for unique items, making it slightly less likely that someone will purchase a unique item even if it is better than a comparable item of the same level.  This particular fact will make it harder to price unique items.

The Cost of Items:  This refers to the cost of an item as listed in the auction house.  Often people do not know the value of an item in the auction house.  Rather than take the time to determine the cost of an item, they will instead auction the item at an estimated cost.  This can lead to items being auctioned at a lower price than their value.  In some cases, it can even be a good investment to purchase an item and re-auctioning it at a higher cost.  The effect that the price other goods of the same type has on your auction is the amount that your item will auction for.  Since other players will purchase items at a lower price than your own items first, your item will sell for less or not at all, even if priced reasonably.  If you have a good idea that the items being sold that you intend to sell are priced too low, you can purchase these items and then sell them again along with your own item.  If your product has a high demand for it (such as crafting materials), you can chose to sell your item at the correct price, and expect the other items to sell first.

The Time of Acquisition:  This is a cost which often forgotten by players, or at least not considered closely.  Every character has a set cost they can earn in an hour based upon how fast they can earn treasure by defeating opponents.  The minimum cost of an item you auction should never be lower than that cost.  As an example, if you go out and farm medium skins, and it takes you an hour to get a stack of 50 skins, than you should not sell those skins for less than the value you could have earned beating opponents for treasure.  It might be worth your time to measure this once in a while, just to give you an idea of how much your time is worth.
Rules of Thumb There are rules of thumb for selling in the auction house.  These can assist you when your in a rush in figuring the price you should set for selling and item:

• Mats more than Products:  Materials will sell for more than other items because they can be used for gaining crafting ability along with their innate value
• Your Level Times Two In Silver:  As a very, very basic rule, sell nothing for less than the level you are when you acquire an item (in a same level area) times two.  This can lead to overpricing or underpricing, but if you have no other choice, this gives you something.
• Three and Four:  Sell nothing for less than three times the sale price of an item at a merchant, if it not sold in stores as a bid price, and set your sellout price at four times the sale price of an item at a merchant.
• Second Place is Your Goal:  Whenever you sell items that are already being sold in the auction house, if you don’t know the value of the item, sell it at slightly less than the value of the most valuable sale of the same item.  Remember that often someone has made a wild guess at somethings value, and set the price too high!

    * Small is Good:  If you have many units of an item to sell, and don’t wish to lose money by selling at the wrong price, sell small amounts of the item at a lower price.  If it sells fast, then sell some more of the small amount at a higher price.  Continue until the sales slow down, then sell the whole block at the same price.
    * Always Have a Buyout:  Buyouts are critical to the sale of anything but the most legendary items.  No matter what, set some sort of buyout for items, because the majority of people who buy things in the auction house want them right away.  Extremely rare and valuable items might be sold without a buyout, instead just a reasonable but high starting bid, because those who bid for these items will really want this item and drive the price very high.
    * Always Use Two Day Auctions: The difference in value for a 4 hour and 2 day auction is minimal compared to the value you get for items, so always set your auctions for 2 days.  Remember to set a buyout.

Remember to Think It Through There are basics to become a premier auction house merchant.  If you really want to make yourself a czar of the auction floor, write down your purchases and remember to check your notes each time you sell stuff.  It will become second nature to do so, and you will eventually find that you have silver and gold flowing into your purse, much more than if you do your auctioning haphazardly.  The auction house is complex and does not fit perfectly into the way the real world works.  To get good at it, you have to learn how it work.


In the first portion of this article, I explained some rules of thumb for selling in the auction house, and how to determine the value of an item.  However, the value of an item does not always match how well it should sell in the auction house.  For example, tier 1 materials often sell for wildly varying prices, even though often they take about the same amount of time to gather.
Examining the Market The economy in LOTRO is based upon need not supply.  That is, you must look for what people need, rather than what you have a lot of, to determine what price to set for an item.  For example, look at tier one scholar products.   Among tier one scholar products, you should sell battle and warding scrolls for the most, crafting scrolls for the least.

How do I know this? Examine scholar recipes more closely; almost everything that you can get from a scholar can be replicated at the tier two level of scholar abilities, with the exception of scrolls of minor battle and scrolls of minor warding lore.  Items of tier one usually are replaced by a better item at level thirteen or so.  For example, a woodworker might buy a scroll of lesser woodworking lore, since the better scroll of woodworking lore is not available until level twenty four, but it is unlikely that a woodworker is going to purchase a scroll of minor woodworking lore, because there is only a six level difference between when the minor and the lesser scrolls are available.

At level seven, most players are working toward the second tier of crafting items quickly.  They are not concerned about creating products for sale, just getting to tier two.  So they are unlikely to purchase a minor crafting scroll.  In addition, since most players get to level thirteen fairly quickly, it is less likely that minor crafting scrolls will be much needed by a character.

Minor crafting scrolls are not particularly valuable.  This leaves lesser athelas and lesser celebrant salve potions, plus minor battle lore and warding lore.  The former two items use only early third age relics, while the latter two items use all three items.  However, note that the potions are replaced at level fifteen, meaning that again, there will be less demand for this, since level fifteen is not hard to reach.  But the battle and warding lore scrolls are not replaced until level twenty four with a better version.

Summarizing, almost everything created by tier one scholar crafting is replaced by level fifteen, so most players will level to that point too quickly.  Furthermore, crafting scrolls are less valuable at low levels, because most players are not interested in crafting for product but simply to get to further tiers.  Since the only items that a tier one scholar can make that will not be outdated by level fifteen are battle and warding lore scrolls, these should be considered the most valuable.

However, just because the battle and warding lore scrolls of tier one are the most valuable does not mean they sell for a lot.. it means that, among the products of tier 1 recipes, they should sell for the most.  What "the most" is, is not always a lot.

Does this mean that scholar tier one materials have a low value, since most of the items they form have a low value?  Remember that most persons who are playing scholars just want to get quickly through tier one crafting points. 

The value of materials is determined by the value of the product they make, and the difficulty of acquiring the material.  Unless you have a character with the particular profession, it can be difficult to know how hard it is to get a particular material, and set a price for that material.  However, you can look at the auction house at prices for these materials or ask around to find out how hard it is to find these materials.

In the case of scholar tier one materials, these items are very difficult to get.  It can take an hour or more to gain a stack of fifty of early third age tablets, for example.  Since every scholar recipe uses these tablets, these are in high demand among players who wish to breeze through their tier one crafting requirement.  While a vial of say, lesser athelas is not particularly valuable, considering how quickly you can gain a level which grants access to better athelas potions, the materials which make them can be quite valuable.  I personally have sold stacks of tablets for 800 silver.
Selling Materials Probably the most effective way to make money in the auction house is via the sale of materials.  This is for two reasons.  One is that the materials are reliably obtained, the other is that the math of earning money is reliably measured with materials.  Here is a great example.  Let us say you wish to sell medium skins.  Simply gather medium skins, then sell them, using the prices of other medium skin auctions in the auction house as a guide, with a fair profit above the value that you could earn otherwise in the time it took you to gather these skins as the minimum price.  Set it for a two day auction and include a buyout.

When it sells write down how long it took to sell, and include the price you set.  Do this again, or even a few times, hiking the price up each time, until you have hit the maximum price before an item does not sell in an auction.  Now you know the value of a item.  Also, keep in mind that items sell for less during weekdays, because there are fewer people around to bid on items.  Prime time to auctioning anything is a auction going from Friday evening to Sunday evening.

You can cause a glut in the market when you sell the same item over and over.  Another option, if your set on making money by selling “mats” in the auction house, is to sell different mats, using the same process described above, first selling skins, then other materials, over time.  This way, the demand for one of your materials will increase while you are selling other materials in turn.

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