I started playing before rune essence so i had no 'easy' money. I did it the good old fashion way, mined tin and copper(slowly moved up to iron then iron/coal) at dwarven mines, then smelted in fally, smithed into sheilds at dorics(shorter walk back then) then sold to the shield shop in fally. My first real money maker was essence when RC came. I also vaguely remember mining silver at varrok west and selling every inventory to a merchant in the bank, making what i thought was alot of money.