Achievements boosting the economy

I only came back to WoW a week or so before the Echoes of Doom patch, but I noticed the prices of most items had plunged, and I decided to hold off selling any of my stock because the prices were bound to rise once Outlands' items became a bit more rare. The patch has attracted back a huge number of players who have not been playing for a significant amount of time, so with more money in the economy and more demand, prices have seen a sudden rise again. The most interesting thing however is the price rise in items linked to achievements. Here's a brief selection of items that are now selling at hugely inflated prices;

- Recipes; the achievements systems encourages people to collect 100 cooking recipes, so naturally the Auction Houses are now flooded with usually worthless recipes. On my realm this Sunday, there were over 800 cooking recipes for sale, and none for under 20g. It's insane that some of these recipes are available to buy for a few copper not 30 yards away from the same Auction House. Quest recipes would usually be very difficult to sell, and I remember wasting time on re-listing them multiple times. These Alliance/Horde exclusives can now be sold on the neutral AH for excellent profit. I know there are a number of Horde recipes that I will be getting sent over by kind friends with Horde alts, no way am I paying 100g for a level 15 quest recipe.

I remember when I first went to Arathi Highlands, I would always make a brief trip to Stromgarde to buy the First Aid books, which would usually net me 5 or 6 gold because people didn't know where to purchase them. These books are now making 5 times as much profit.

It's not all positive though, remember the AH is flooded with hundreds of auctions so sometimes it can take days and multiple re-listings to sell your stuff; better watch out if the the items have high deposit prices. Also there has been a drop in the prices of some more unusual recipes. With more people running Azeroth dungeons for achievements, rare recipes like Goblin Jumper Cable XL from Blackrock Depths are now dropping in price. This recipe for example is usually worth 60-100g (I used to farm BRD regularly for Thorium Brotherhood reputation), but my economy now has about 5 of these floating around for about 30g. I will probably hold on to the two I have for a while longer.

- Pets; I don't think anyone has missed the dramatic increase in pet prices. I've regretted selling the Kitten I bought of Little Timmy for 20g a few months ago, it's now going for over 100g. Pet collecting was for the eccentrics on the realm, but these days everyone is jumping on the bandwagon. Again the real profit is being made on the neutral AH selling your faction exclusives. If you do happen to stumble across a pet, it would be well worth checking how rare it is before selling it especially if you're not too familiar with the pet collecting scene. Engineer's should also be aware that their pets might finally be sellable, especially if you're lucky enough to have the mechanical toad recipe (also note the prices of these pet recipes has gone up too).

- Reputation items; I've been into getting exalted reputations for a while now, and so far I'm on 17 (and this is with solo play, without having any instance/raid reputations). My bank balance has certainly been hurt with the sudden rise in prices of reputation hand in items. Whilst the Outland items have not seen a huge increase in price (with the lack of interest in TBC so close to Wrath, they had already lowered in price) the original Azeroth items have been the main beneficiaries. If you're planning on farming some of these for a quick buck, here a couple you might be interested in (also check out the faction guides on WoWWiki for further info).

Cenarion Circle: Encrypted Twilight Texts are a very common drop in Silithus. Whereas before the patch I could pick up 100 of these for as little as 2g on the AH, they now go for 40g- and that's for just 10 of them. Certain mobs in Silithus drop 8-10 of these, so for one kill that a huge amount of money and much faster than any daily quest. The Twilight Cutlist set is also selling again on the Auction House, after about 18 months of no interest. I still had 20 of these left from when I was doing my own CC rep grind and sold them for 10g each. Check out the WoWWiki page if you want the full information on what you can sell. This reputation is very popular because many players already have the Cenarion Expedition at exalted, and having both grants a title. There has been a slight price increase of CE items, but not significant. If you are interested in getting your CE rep, you should be aware there is an item in Northrend that will make it much easier, so you might as well hold off and not make the same mistake as me (buying 15 000 reputation worth of Coilfangs was expensive!).

Thorium Brotherhood: Most of the items you need to sell are only available from Molten Core, and people have been running it for the achievement. If you do happen to end up in MC, keep an eye out for Blood of the Mountain, Lava Core, Fiery Core and Core Leather. On my realm they are selling for 50-100g, and selling well too. For those of you not running Molten Core, if you're in Burning Steppes during the Invasion Event, you might want to mine some Dark Iron nodes. Not only is Dark Iron Ore up in price again, but it has a chance to drop Blood of the Mountain. Obviously it's not worth farming for some of this stuff because it can be just as easy to do dailies, I'm just suggesting it's worth doing if you're in the area.

Argent Dawn: Although its pretty easy to get reputation with them at the moment, thanks to the Invasion event, I'm sure the prices of some of the items may have gone up but you'll have to check out your own realm for more detail. It's fairly easy to solo this faction, even though it is time consuming, so I doubt there is a huge increase in price as most of the item hand ins do not give much reputation. It is worth noting that the price of materials you need for Craftman's Writ quests has gone up, although I'm not sure it's linked to this. The items include leather and thorium bars.

Zandalar Tribe: The Bijous found in Zul'Gurub are selling very well, if you do happen to find yourself there.

Home Cities: Of course the most obvious price rise has been in Runecloth which is required as a hand in for your factions own cities. Most people are too lazy to quest for their reputation, and the title given for being exalted with all five of your own races is fairly easy to get. On my realm stacks are going for 10g, which is about a 70% price rise.

Sporeggar: This is the Outland faction that has seen the most obvious inflation. Not only is it tied into the Diplomat title reward, but its probably the easiest faction to get exalted with in the entire game so many players are after the items.

I'm sure there are countless other items that have seen a rise in price thanks to achievements and maybe you want to cash in. Personally I'm too lazy to do any of this, but are there any other items you've noticed go up in price mainly because of achievements? It would be interesting to find out.
I have an exam in a few hours and for some insane reason I'm writing this blog, so excuse me for any typos and wish me luck!