Guild Wars 2

I have noticed that the Zephyr Rustskin Skin has shot way up in price. Is this because of its limited nature? If I have the 300 gold to get one would it be a good investment?

It shot up in price because of the release of the wardrobe system, people want every skin they can get their hands on. It will spike but most likely stabilise again in price after a while. Also the Zephyr Sanctum might be returning this year so chances are that the skin will be dropping again. I don’t think its a worthwhile investment, but that’s just my opinion.

Nerority.5013:

I have noticed that the Zephyr Rustskin Skin has shot way up in price. Is this because of its limited nature? If I have the 300 gold to get one would it be a good investment?

NEVER buy in after the price shoots up. That’s pretty much rule #1 of investing.

If the price has shot up then you are too late to get in on it.

Other people have invested in limited time skins and got burned when ANet released more of them. iirc they did it with this last LS patch on Lions Arch. A number of skins had a rare chance to come out of those refugee bags.

I would think twice and hard before I put 300 gold on it.

Based on the minimum sell versus max buy it honestly looks fishy to me. Like someone tried to flip them? I don’t know. I don’t know much about this kind of thing but I would never ever spend that amount of gold on a back piece like this. The jet pack I can see because it was really rare to begin with. These rucksacks like the desert rose were actually very easy to get when they came out. Too much supply in my opinion.

In general, i think skins are a good investment but with the rucksack skin you somehow missed the train and that not too bad either becasue i think its overvalued at 300g.
You are right that the price shot up due to its limited availability atm. But i doubt that most of the supply was bought up by consumers (which use the skin) but by speculators.

So if you bought one at 50g a week or so ago and sold it for 100-300g in the last spike, you made a good deal. I doubt that this price is sustainable. Why? Because i think the limited availability will not last. The skin available on the tp was a rare award for one of the mini games during the Bazaar of the 4 Winds, so right now there is no new supply coming in. However, the Bazaar had its own currency, fortune scraps and fortune tickets, which you could to exchange for special skins. You still can do that btw, if you have fortune tickets. The Rucksack Skin was also available to trade for but that one was account bound.
Now, I am pretty sure that the Bazaar of the 4 Winds will return within the next 2 months and with that the possibility of earning the tradeable skins on the tp and the accoutn bound skins for fortune tickets.
Most of the poeple that try to fill their wardrobe atm, focus on cheap skins first and then go for the more expensive ones. So as a speculator, i focussed on relatively cheap skins:
I bought plenty of stacks of wintersday skins because they are the cheapest. There is plenty of supply and they are sure to be rereleased during next wintersday but thats a long way to go. Most of them are and have been available before and after the patch between copper value and 5s and some of them spiked as high as 70s during the heavy speculation phase. Its a gamble but if real demand of customers doesnt show up until next wintersday to get 1000-2000% of profit out of them, fake demand by speculators will probably at least give an opportunity to get back 200-500% profits before the summer is over.
For medium priced skins I would suggest the shoulder and weapons skins that were released during the Southsun Cove LS (not the sclerite weapon skins available for BLTs but Tiki Totem Shield, shark Tooth weapons, Clipper Focus skin and island shoulder skins). Most of them are available in the low gold price range and most of them already have been bought out by speculators at some point to raise the price to double digit gold value.
With those skins i am more certain that Anet wont release them too soon and in quantities the reoccurance of the Bazaar would towards the rucksack skin.

For high value skins I would go for skins obtained through Black Lion Tickets. Lovestruck weapons went incredibly low on buy orders a month after they got raised in ticket price but they are on their way up again. If you are looking limited high value skins, go for the cheap Halloween 2012 skins, the Severed Dagger skin (which is an awesome skin) and the Rifle (which is gimmicky) and all 9 shoulder skins. The deathly ones with the skulls are the most expensive and especially the light version is thought after because Anet used it to promote the Grenth Hood last Wintersday. As soon as Grenth Hood will be re-released during a sale (which i dont think will happen because its a seasonal item) or during wintersday (which is more reasonable) its value will skyrocket because there is thousands of people who want that look and there is less than 100 available. The Bull´s Shoulders also look decent, especially with the Dragon Bash horns helmet, The Devils Horns from LA Battle and a decent set of Dragon Wings. Its the look I use for my main for a couple of months now and i really like it.
The Aviation Shoulders look kinda funny but could still see a price increase due to its limited availability.
SAB weapon skins might also be worth looking into but personally, i didnt observe their prices very much and didnt do much SAB in the past to give you a qualified opinion.

Someone with a lot of money just bought all of them up to a certain point. Give it a bit and it’ll balance back waaaaay down again.

Astral Projections.7320:

Other people have invested in limited time skins and got burned when ANet released more of them. iirc they did it with this last LS patch on Lions Arch. A number of skins had a rare chance to come out of those refugee bags.

I would think twice and hard before I put 300 gold on it.

In the aftermath of the LA battle I think Anet handled the reintroduction of limited skins (among other things like recipes, sentinel gear and minis) fairly well.
Most of the previous limited supply items that got reintroduced with the Ultimate Citizens Rescue Bag lost only 10-20% in the long run and thats a decent value, im my opinion. Its enough to scare speculators to speculate on limited time releases too much and made the item more available to the general player base, without hurting those players too much that bought the item to consume before patch.

The unpredicatability of Anet releasing commonly known limited items again is a good measure to somehow limit speculators in their profits once in a while and not go haywire.

Rising Dusk.2408:

Someone with a lot of money just bought all of them up to a certain point. Give it a bit and it’ll balance back waaaaay down again.

I completely agree with this. And i think this is what the regular player sees as “market manipulation” from players with lots of gold. What they dont see, is that player who just bought up the majority of supply underestimated the magnitude of the market (10 times more skins stored in personal storage than on the tp and the only demand he will rise is artificial, so from other specualtors). So in the end, all he will do is spread his wealth becasue he is gonna make a huge loss on it.

300g?!?! Holy crap on a stick.

looks sadly at his Lightning Catcher and Desert Rose which are sitting at 53g and 42g respectively