Optimal exchange rate?

What is the best Gem/Gold exchange rate that you've seen in the past 3-4 months? Realistically, what should I be shooting for?

EDIT: Gems to Gold exchange...sorry, should have been clearer.

Buying Gems? 400 Gems for 120-125g has been the norm for past few months. When ANET releases something new the price spikes to 130-140g, and they have been releasing a lot of cool stuff since the anniversary sale, so anything in the 120-range is where I'll buy.

Selling Gems? No idea :disappointed:

@"GW Noob.6038" said:What is the best Gem/Gold exchange rate that you've seen in the past 3-4 months? Realistically, what should I be shooting for?

Gems to Gold: slightly above 1,000 gems for 250 gold just a couple of days ago.

A "good" gems-to-gold exchange rate is always around 1,200 or below. The current rate is 1,108. :+1:

I miss the days when I would wait for the price of gems to dip below 70g. (sigh) I haven't seen them below 120 or so for a while with the aforementioned spikes to the mid-140s.

It held fairly steady for the last couple of years but now it seems it’s going up again. I check for the last week or two to find the current optimal rates.

Go to All to see rates since launch

@"Just a flesh wound.3589" said:It held fairly steady for the last couple of years but now it seems it’s going up again. I check for the last week or two to find the current optimal rates.

Go to All to see rates since launch

Thanks, Flesh Wound! Very helpful graph.

As a general rule when new stuff comes out on the gem store, or items are discounted, the exchange rate goes up - making gems bought with gold more expensive and gold bought with gems cheaper. It goes down in the gaps between big gem store sales/promotions or on rare occasions when a lot of people want a lot of gold, like shortly after Path of Fire was released when a lot of people wanted gold for the griffon mount.

@ Everyone: Thanks, guys...I'm much better prepared now!

I know you asked about gems→gold, but I mostly look at the other direction. Here are some observations not captured above:

• It's worth checking whenever you have an idle moment. The rate varies drastically sometimes in ways not captured on the graph linked above (see why below). And I have found bargain rates that last under an hour before things go back to equilibrium.
• That equilibrium has been surprisingly consistent for about 30 months and it's only modestly different from a previous equilibrium. In other words, it's been going up & down, but always returning to a similar price.
• The primary things that drive the rate up are: new items, discounts on black lion keys, the two-month WvW linkages changes, new MountFits, new or returning Wings, something new in the BL chest that is account bound.
• The primary downward drivers are: December (people getting gift cards for presents), discount on the price of the game (people buy the deluxe edition and convert gems to gold), something new in game that costs gold (so people convert gems in bulk to pay for it), and a lack of new things in the gem shop.

Problems with the Spidy GraphSpidy has had huge periods in its history when it didn't collect gem:gold data and some shorter periods when it collected inaccurate data. It also didn't always collect the data as frequently. As a result, it has some issues.(Most of that has been fixed, so Spidy is now in better shape; it's still a good website and the wiki still includes links to it, in its item info boxes.)

GW2 TP has an alternative graph which I use instead.https://www.gw2tp.com/gems

Both graphs collect gold:gem data less often than they collect item data (for a variety of reasons), so the graphs miss nuance, which turns out to happen every week. There are people who claim that there's a pattern that relates to EU waking up or NA region going to bed, or usual paydays (like the 1st of the month or Fridays, etc). However, in my time tracking, I think it's just coincidence. I've seen spikes happen when there's no obvious external cause and those are less common than steep declines. I suspect what happens is someone on a website somewhere mentions something that causes a lot of people to suddenly decide to convert, causing a big change in the rate. But... that's just as speculative.

The short of it is: I've found amazing bargains for converting gold to gems just by checking at an odd time, while waiting for a friend to finish salvaging or to get off the phone.

For what it's worth, my observations for 'recent' gold:gem numbers (which you can see when you select the conversion tab):

• 110-115 gold per 400 gems is typical and I don't recommend bargain hunters convert when the rate is worse
• 160 gold is the highest I can remember in a particular moment. 145g is highest I've seen sustain itself for more than an hour or two.
• 93 gold is lowest I remember, with 100-105 being a typical low rate for an extended period of time.
• High rates take longer to drop to equilibrium than low rates take to return and rates spike higher more quickly than they crash.

it would never go back down to that level unless anet nerfs every single farming maps

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 Thanks for the graph! I'll use the information you guy's provided, and the data that I'm collecting, to give me a better idea of when to buy gold.

@crepuscular.9047 said:it would never go back down to that level unless anet nerfs every single farming maps

Down to what level? I've bought 400 gems for under 100 gold this year (it's just really unusual); 105-110 gold per 400 gems is more common.

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:it would never go back down to that level unless anet nerfs every single farming maps

under 70g

@crepuscular.9047 said:

@Illconceived Was Na.9781 said:

@crepuscular.9047 said:it would never go back down to that level unless anet nerfs every single farming maps

Ah fair enough. There just wasn't a context to your comment, and mine was the post just before yours, so I thought you were referring to 90g per 400 gold (which I have seen recently, albeit briefly).