Id like to focus on two items in this post; both of them are very different in price and usage. However, they are both similar in their inflation or deflation.

 

 

 

The first item i will focus on are big bones, or bbs. Economically these are strange items, but why?

 

 

 

Incase you didnt notice, big bones have experienced a 300% or more inflation since about a year ago. I am preety shure they are the only raw material or level-up item to do so, and hold the inflation. Approximately a year and a half or so ago, when I played runescape with my old account, big bones costed 100gp each. I know this because i used to kill giants to fetch their bones. When i returned to RS on a new acount 8 months or so later, big bones where 150-200gp. Back in October 2005, big bones were around 300gp. A month or so later I quit. Now, big bones are 350-450each.

 

 

 

Your first assumption would be that merchants gradually pushed the price of big bones, but that is not the case. Big bones were never ideally or widely merchanted a year ago, and even up to 3 or 4 months ago. They simply served the purpose of prayer, and only for prayer. Then what pushed the prices of big bones up? I came to the assumption that, over the course of time, the suppliers themselves pushed big bones up. I mean, how are you going to merchant bbs when they are 100ea? Its almost impossible. Since then, big bones have become a moderate object of merchants, but never, in full scale, were they merchanted (like yews). Another, but more modern, reason for their increase is, i believe, that they can not be macroed as easily as anyting else, if at all.

 

But the main reason for their increase is their supply and circulation. The amount of big bones on the market is never increasing because the supply < demand, and what do the buyers do with it? Bury them, ofcourse! And if a bone is burried, its gone forever. This results in a low supply, which is why they are, and probably never will be, widely merchanted. Another reason is that many f2p people train on giants, resulting in a big-bone-here, a big-bone-there, a big-bone-big-bone-every-where. This results in big bones being very diffuclt to collect and gather because the quantity that one player has is not as great, and merchants don't want to spend the time buying 2 unnoted big bones at a time.

 

 

 

This will all result in an ever-increasing price of big bones, until dragon bones themselves regulate the price. This may result in dragon bones rising, but thats not why i posted. But why, you may ask, are dragon bones not this way? Dragons are sought out for their hides, bones, and training, which results in many people training on them because they can both make a profit and train at the same time.

 

 

 

My prediction for big bones: An ever-increasing price until, and only until, merchants seize the market, and circulate the big bones, regulating the price, and stabilizing it.

 

 

 

I will post my other item prediction when i come back, but i have to go. cya, and thanks for reading :D .

Were big bones ever 100gp each? :?

 

 

 

Ok anyways, they won't get too high in price for few simple reasons; dragon bones and the grinder. At 400gp each it isn't worth it to buy big bones if you have p2p; higher supply of dragon bones and dragon bones are a lot cheaper xp when ground. If you wanna bury your way, dragon bones are a bit chepeapr, but not much. I did few calculations with my own prayer xp;

 

 

 

10,612,164xp to 99 pray

 

147392 dragon bones buried = 383,219,200gp at 2.6k per bone

 

36848 dragon bones ground = 95,804,800gp at 2.6k per bone

 

707478 big bones buried = 282,991,200gp at 400gp per

 

 

 

This shows that if you wanna save 100m cash, you gotta bury 560k bones more. Believe me, that's not fun. Over half million clicks just to save 100m? I'd rather earn 100m more. If you have the patience to grind, it's cheaper to buy those 37k d bones and grind than buy those 707k and bury them. We can't forget small prayer updates like King Dagannoth bones either.

 

 

 

Only reason why big bones have demand is f2p. In p2p they just aren't worth buying. The current trend is that p2p users get richer with all the new updates (slayer for example) while f2p users gotta stick up with the old money making ways while hoping for even a small update. The number of high lvl (120+ combat) pure f2p users is still rather low, most of them become p2p at some point or do skills. This doesn't look too good if you are planning to stock up big bones and wait for a price rise: low number of high levels ones who actually need BIG amounts of them and rising money cap between f2p and p2p.

 

 

 

Of course the number of high lvl f2p users grow, but I'm 100% sure that the number of low lvl f2p users grows faster. If the demand for big bones went up for some odd reasons (like f2p merchants decided to get 126 combat or something), those low lvl users would most likely kill hill giants so much that the supply would meet demand again.

 

 

 

The current rise in their price is caused by this years trend; last year people maxed their melee stats while doing slayer and got rich with it, this year they get some prayer levels and gain few extra combats. Big bones have been sold because people have seen there a way to get some cheap xp. While d bone supply has risen a lot, it has been pretty stable for big bones. This has caused lower d bone prices (dropped from 3k to like 2.3k and then rose to 2.5-2.7k) and higher big bone prices. Of course this trend can't keep going on forever; when big bone prices get too high and it's painful to buy big amounts of them, people go for dragon bones.

good read. i agree with you like 90%. and big bones are hard to merchant trust me i tried

 

 

 

 

 

( first post yeah :P )

Seeing what you've said big bones have gotten a lot more expensive o.O

they should be alot...they are annoying to collect and bank. I just bury mine.

 

Dragon bones where its at!