I already have a precious vial of M-----'s B—d from a foray into a certain large crevice. The portly sommelier has been appearing with startling frequency and I have mindlessly been converting my Cellars of Wine (12,50 each) into Airag (62.50 each). Perhaps my brain has been addled from too much sunlight from mirrorcatch boxes, but it only just occurred to me that this might not be worth my while?
Assuming I keep doing this, I will still need to exchange the Airag for Tears of the Bazaar, and thereafter exchange them for MB at the cost of 7 points of notability. In terms of pure echo and action value, it sounds like the extra actions and points of notability exchanged are not worth it. I’m talking in the context of grinding for echoes and not for the sake of owning it for my mantelpiece or for upgrading premises.
Converting the Cellars of Wine into Airag is a reasonable idea, as you gain the value of the coins the Sommelier gives you, and Airag has a few high-level uses. However converting the Airag into Tears of the Bazaar is not worth it monetarily! One Tears is worth the same as five Airag, so with each conversion you lose 125 echoes (and the five Tears needed to convert further have the same value as the MB so no gain there either). The only reason to do so is if you need Tears for gaining Lacre or sustaining a Noman, or want another vial of MB to trade at De Gustibus for a Sealed Copy of the Crimson Book. edited by Optimatum on 10/1/2015
Thanks for the answer! That helped a lot because I was blindly converting on the assumption that higher tier is better. What a terrible deal to spend 7 Airag for Tears of the Bazaar that sell for an equivalent of 5 Airag.
It is rather disappointing that the Tear of the Bazaar are such a bad option in terms of cost. It seems like they should be worth considerably more considering the cost and effort of acquiring them.
Impossible Theorems are pretty bad too - it takes 49 Searing Enigmas to make one, and yet the theorem only sells for 1562.60 echoes. That’s a total loss of 1,499.90 echoes, and that’s just the trade itself. Getting Searing Enigmas through the University makes it even worse if you aren’t extremely lucky.
Actually, isn’t the option to convert Cellars of Wine into Tears of the Bazaar still a bad decision (echo-wise) despite the First City Coins you get out of it? The selling value of 5 coins is just 1.25 echoes, and that’s with the use of 3 actions. That brings you to a total of a little over 0.41 echoes per action for the coins. Honestly, the only use of grinding Airag, Tears, or MB is for bragging rights, limited use in the game, or simply because you want goals to strive for. If money is what you’re after, then you might as well sell your Wines at the Bazaar and use your actions on more profitable ventures. Better yet, don’t bother with the Wines collecting and spend your time grinding on better sources of income, such as the Affair of the Box carousel or grinding in Polythreme.
Using the presumptuous opportunity to trade in Greyfields or Morelways is actually profitable, provided you have a good means of getting those wines. I currently get a decent trickle of Greyfields 1882 from More Larks with the Young Stags that I can convert up into Morelways and then Strangling Willow Absinthe and then sell to the Bazaar. It’s definitely not worth it if your only good source of wines is unfinished business, though.
There are several points where you need an airiang, but yes, you’ll get a generally sufficient supply from nadir expeditions alone. I’m collecting tears, but they’re… not that useful, unless you want to aquire everything in christmas in one go.