Why do people buy unidentified items

Well, appart from those that buy unided items for the title (which rarelly go for more than 1k generally), i'm asking how can there be a market for this kind of items where information is so assymetrical.

If ppl buy expensive unided items that has to be because they don't know the fact that the seller can find out the mods of the item without identifying it.
For those who don't know, there are a couple of simple tests u can run on the Nameless island or with a guildy to help u identify valuable mods without actually iding the item. Just equip the item in question and watch the effects it produces.

So, when some1 is buying an unided item we're in the situation that the seller has the information on the actual value of the item and the buyer has no information at all.
If the seller is trying to sell something unidentifyed that's because he probably checked out which mods it has and determined that it is pratically worthless.

If some1 decides to sell an item as unided it's because he's trying to ask a price superior the actual value of the item (if the item was worth more identified he would sell it like that).

I'm just tired of seeing ppl selling unided items on towns or even online auctions for huge values.

Hope u understand my english.

Anet should make it so you cant equip an item until its identified. That would shoot all these people trying to rip players off right in the foot.

I always have said unid items are the new guild wars gambling.

I doubt many people actually buy un-id'ed items for large sums.

I dont know about "large sums", but everything around 1k sounds reasonable. A good way to cheat around the lame unlock grind.

If you are working for UAX, and have support of some kind (back in the day good pvp player guilds used to be rich due to sigils), its easier to get a "base unlock" by just buying a bunch of unIDed items, then finetune using faction. Same with runes.

Most competitive players need to grind-run and powerlevel pve characters for their main professions anyway, so they might just as well pick up some gold on the way. That can be put to good use, and if one has UAX already, there are still second accounts (for smurfing and anonymity ) and new promising recruits for the guild.

1k is not a large sum

Hell, I'd buy any gold for 1k just to increase my wisdom title.

Selling rares for 1k is one thing, no idea why people would be for significantly more when weapons/other items can be tested.. laziness or will to believe in possible good mods, perhaps.

It is indeed the mod unlocking and the Wisdom title that are probably the best reasons for this market.

I'm not talking about the 0-5k part of this market (don't believe ppl will buy golds for more than 2k for unlocks or wisdom title).
I was talking about ppl that attempt to sell unidentified golds (normally with good skins and low requirement) in auctions or in game for quite more considerable amounts.
Just go to guru auctions and do a little search on closed rare skin unided auctions and u'll see what i'm talking about.
There are ppl giving quite a lot of money for shields and swords that'll probably turn out to be a crap

There's your answer right there, taking advantage of the uninformed. Also, your english is fine.

I sold an unidentified Platinum Sword for 55k. Apparently the guy was collecting rare swords and didn't care about the mods at all.

Although this is rare, by far the most common reason has already been mentioned: wisdom title.

EDIT: ACTUALLY, I just remembered that i've met TONS of people selling unidentified items and they DID NOT know you could equip it and figure out some of the mods it had, I was the one who ended up telling them, heh.

just dont buy unid shield for more than 5k, it's a scam....

Question: I understand you can equip unidenitied weapons to establish possible mods, but what about armor runes, is there a way to figure out what rune is in the armor with out idenifing it?

no. the most you can is expert salvage it to know of which profession the rune is. Oc the vigor rune is out of this as it has a unique skin.

Far as I can tell, the only reason people buy unid items is only for the title. Most of the people buying up gold unids usually don't care what it is as long as it's gold and unid'd. However, if they do end up with a nice gold item they can resell, that's a bit of a bonus. A typical chest run from say imperial sanctum, the keys cost I think 600g. If you get a crap gold item like a wand which is more often than not going to unid to a piece of junk, you can sell it unid'd to somebody for 1k, thereby making a small profit and recouping the cost of the key.

Back in the day before testing unid was widely known selling Unid was a profitable trade.

During the first couple months no one knew that unid could be checked so they did sell for a fair amount of money. I remember seeing a summit axe req selling on these forums for 200k..but remember this is when gold drops were actually rare.

Unid HoH drops will still fetch a few hundred depending on req of course.

I actually had a stickied thread in the PC forum for unids...req8 chaos axes went for 70-80k at one point.

Unids on a large scale still see alot of action :\

Just 1-2 weeks ago I sold a req10 Fellblade UNID for 15k >_>

"Why do people buy unidentified items"

1) Dumb
2) Bored
3) All the above lol

Never understood this..

to get that perfect pruning upgrade

a more pertinent question is: why do people pay more for lower req weapons?

There you have the answer

Lower req have their uses for certain builds ect, most ppl including me sell the low req and keep the higher one's.

This is true but only to a certain extent. For example, you will be hard pressed to discover the difference between a 13^50, 14^50 and 15^50 middle modded axe/sword/bow. Even the ridiculously expensive (albeit worthless) sundering mods are hard to discover without IDing. Fortitude, zealous and vampiric mods are really the only easy ones to spot without spending a lot of time testing, and of those fortitude is the only one worth anything signifigant.

Also, a lot of people buy unIDed golds for pvp unlocks and wisdom titles.

i brought a unid req 13 fellblade for 10k and got a sundering mod worth 75k
then i brought a unid flamberge for 8k which was sundering too :P

I really wonder why they still haven't made unidentified mods inactive when equipped. I'd have nothing against buying an unidentified item, but I will never do it because of the way an underhanded seller could abuse the system.

I've bought armor unid, for 2 purposes:

1. Wisdom
2. Despite the fairly high cost of the armor I always seem to get lucky enought to get a Sup Vigor when I buy 7 of them.

Also I bought an unid Iridescant Aegis. I knew I was buying crap before I purchased it, but I wanted the skin (and don't have a char at Raisu Palace). Of course the mods weren't worth the cost but they were at least usuable, and seeing as the skin was my #1 on that purchase it turned out alright.