Getting the most out of your Jewelcrafting

 Ever since Jewelcrafting has come into the game it has been one of the most profitable professions.  This is no surprise, because of the constant demand of gems on all levels of characters.  Today I wanted to give five tips on how to take this profession and maybe help you get more out of it than you already do.

First tip:  This should be obvious, but do your daily as often as possible.  If you can help it, don't ever let a day go by without getting this done.  It is to important to forget it.  This is especially true early in the expansion/patch with new gems.  At the point we are at in WOTLK, it does not make it as important, but why waste days when you could be gaining tokens on more cuts.  More cuts means more profit.  The other two ways to gain tokens are through Titanium Powder and Damaged Necklace.  The powder comes from prospecting Titanium Ore and the Necklace is a random world drop.  Both of these can be found on the AH.

Second tip: Don't ever sell your Jewelcrafting through trade chat.  Trade chat is an excellent tool (between all the anal spam) to buy your mats, not to sell them.  By selling gem cuts through trade you could be giving people the necessary materials to compete with your own auctions on the Auction House.  Also, on average most people will tip around 10g.  Sure, it seems like a good idea at the time, however, if they then turn around and undercut you on the AH it will take away the amount of profit you could be making.

Third tip:  Take advantage of all the cuts you own.  This includes uncommon, rare, and epic gems.  On most servers, they will all sell.  Epic cuts on my server are on the downfall right now, because most people have killed LK on their mains and have most of the loot they are ever going to get.  So what do these people do?  They roll alts and start all over.  This is why my uncommon and rare gems have been selling like crazy.  Nobody is going to buy epic gems to level a character with, however, they will buy the lesser versions to just fill a gem slot.  Some of the most popular uncommon and rare gems I sell are: Runed Bloodstone, Bold Bloodstone, Runed Scarlet Ruby, Solid Chalcedony, and Solid Sky Sapphire.  There are many more you can sell through these lower level markets.  I just try to focus on these, because I feel they give me the best return on my server.

Fourth tip:  Cut popular Meta-gems.  Meta-gems can net a nice profit.  Especially, now that they removed the CD from creating the raw gems.  Check on a site like wowpopular.com and find your top selling Meta-gems.  Purchase a couple of these, and it will help add to your gold income.

Fifth tip:  Prospect your ore for gems if prices allow it.  More times than not it is cheaper to prospect ore for the gems over buying the raw gems themselves.  Take advantage of your prospect tool and prospect ore for your own gem sells.  Also, prospecting is an important part of the Saronite Shuffle.  The Saronite Shuffle is a technique used to make gold from all the gems you can prospect from Saronite Ore.  If you have an enchanter it can be taken a step even farther than the chart shows.

Update:
Cold from http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/ made a great point in the comments on an additional way to add epic gems to your stock.  His blog post: http://coldsgoldfactory.blogspot.com/search/label/Wintergrasp%20Shuffle/  explains in detail.  If you haven't checked him out go give him a read.  Thanks Cold.