Painted Petpets' Peculiar Prices

A simple way to determine the price of a painted petpet would be to add up the price of a plain petpet and the price of the paint brush. After all in economics there is such a thing as the law of one price, which states that if goods are identical, they should have the same price. And a petpet plus a paint brush is identical to a painted petpet, therefore they should be priced the same. (Also don’t worry, I am not going to throw any other economical terms.)

But is this really true? Is the price of a paint brush and a petpet identical to the price of the painted petpet? In order to examine this, I will now look up some prices of painted petpets. I will use the Shop Wizard to search for the lowest price, because that generally gives the most reliable results. But because shops cannot have very expensive items, I will have to look up relatively cheap painted petpets. Note that when you are reading this, the prices may have changed, but the general result should be the same. In fact I encourage you to do a little research yourself and see if what I am saying is true.

Anyway, on to the testing. For this I have chosen the White Anubis. Using the Shop Wizard, I got the following prices:

Anubis = 12.000 NP

White Petpet Paint Brush = 65.000 NP

White Anubis = 55.000 NP

What a stunning result! Clearly 12.000 plus 65.000 do not equal 55.000. In fact the paint brush is more expensive than the petpet! This goes against everything I have said before. However it is possible that this is a rare coincidence that accidentally happened for just this petpet. It is possible that the rule of price of petpet and paint brush added up still applies to other cases. So to see if this rule is always broken, more prices should be studied. Therefore I now examine the blue Cobrall:

Cobrall = 2.000 NP

Blue Petpet Paint Brush = 72.000 NP

Blue Cobrall = 55.000 NP

And again the paint brush in itself is more expensive than the painted petpet! How unusual. But before I draw my conclusion, I will look at one more petpet, just to be sure. For this I picked the Green Alkenore.

Alkenore = 27.000 NP

Green Petpet Paint Brush = 42.000 NP

Green Alkenore = 50.000 NP

Now the painted petpet is the most expensive of the three, but it still does not cost as much as the plain petpet and the paint brush combined. But what does this all mean? And why is this the case?

The law of one price said that identical goods should have the same price. However a petpet and a paint brush is not completely identical to a painted petpet. This is because there are more options with a petpet and a paint brush. I could use the brush for another petpet. The brush offers possibilities. However once a petpet is painted, these options are used up. And that costs money.

The law of one price would have held if a painted petpet could be changed back into a plain petpet and a paint brush. After all, if that could happen, then I would simply buy a Blue Cobrall for 55.000 NP, change it into a Cobrall and a Blue Petpet Paint Brush and sell the two items for 74.000 NP. This way I could have made 19.000 NP without doing much work! However, should this be possible, then more people would try to do it. They would all try to buy a Blue Cobrall and thus the Blue Cobrall’s price would rise until it reaches 74.000 NP: equal to that of the petpet and the paint brush.

But as said before, the painted petpet cannot be turned back into a plain petpet and a paint brush. And because of that, the items are not identical and do not have the same price. A paint brush simply offers more possibilities and people have to pay extra for that.

Now what does all this mean concretely? For one thing, if you want a painted petpet, do not buy the petpet and then a paint brush to brush him yourself. It is much cheaper to buy the painted petpet directly. This can save you a lot of money, so I will repeat it: do not paint your petpets yourself! It is much cheaper to buy a painted petpet.

So that is what you should do when you buy a painted petpet. But what if you want to sell one? How much should you ask for it? Obviously the best way is to see what are people are asking for it. Simply check the prices provided by the Shop Wizard or stated on the Trading Post. But with rare painted petpets, such prices are not available. Then what to do? Clearly, the minimum price of a painted petpet is the price of the plain petpet. These two offer the same possibilities in terms of what other painted petpets you can get. The painted petpet should never cost less than the unpainted petpet. However, it may very well cost a bit more. This is where some guesswork enters the equation. You can ask a premium because it is painted. Keep in mind the price of the paint brush, but do not add the entire price of the brush to your asking price.

I am afraid I cannot be more clear on how much to ask; you should try it out for yourself. Still, if you keep wondering why your painted petpet is not selling, I may have now given you the answer: its price should not be the price of the petpet and the brush, but less than that. And remember: buy a painted petpet instead of painting your petpet for yourself.