Total Blacksmith Leveling Cost and Materials
- 593,000 gold
- 50 Page of Blacksmithing
- 50 Tome of Blacksmithing
- 35 Tome of Secrets
Source
Total Jeweler Leveling Cost and Materials
- 140,000 gold
- 20 Page of Jewelcrafting
- 20 Tome of Jewelcrafting
- 40 Tome of Secrets
Source
Drop Rate and place
- Page of Blacksmithing - Drops in Nightmare, Hell, Inferno difficulty
- Tome of Blacksmithing - Drops in Hell, Inferno difficulty
- Tome of Secrets - Drops in Inferno difficulty
- Page of Jewelcrafting - Drops in Nightmare, Hell, Inferno difficulty
- Tome of Jewelcrafting - Drops in Hell, Inferno difficulty
- Tome of Secrets - Drops in Inferno difficulty
These items do not drop in Normal mode
Source
Aside the above information, there are reports about pages droping in ACT IV normal.¹²
I believe is because some monster have a iLv in ACT IV normal equivalent to the early monsters from nightmare (Like the gems, where you get better quality based on the item level), but I couldn't find source to support (or to invalid) this information. (still looking)
The AH is now offline, so there's no way to check what crafting materials go for anymore. New ones are also Account bound, so you can't even trade them even if you wanted to.
It depends on what crafting material you are looking for. If you're looking for Subtle Essence and Fallen Tooth, your best bet is to farm as much gold as you can, and buy it from the auction house.
Currently, the crafting materials are selling for 20 and 45 gold, respectively. That is drastically cheaper than buying shop items, or even farming them yourself.
Source: this answer.
So, the answer fluctuates. In the event that the crafting material cost on the auction house rises above the cost of buying an equivalent magical item you can salvage, buy it from shops. In either case, gold find helps you.
For magic find, it will also depend on how long it takes you to find and gather magical items. The time investment will fall somewhere between the other two scenarios. It will take less time to find items you can salvage than it would to gather 1000 gold, but quite a bit longer than to gather just 25 or 100 gold.
The only time you want to really find magic items is when crafting material cost on the auction house goes above the cost of shop items. Which, at that point, becomes a stable economy for you on it's own. Buy magic items from shops, salvage, post crafting materials on auction house. Repeat. Use extra gold to buy items to salvage materials for yourself.
So, short answer, from least to most time investment, using Subtle Essence as an example:
- If: Crafting materials are dirt cheap (Costs less than you would get from selling magical items): Sell magic items and buy from auction house.
- If: Crafting materials are more expensive (more than selling your magic items) and less expensive than buying items from shops for salvage:
- If: Gathering requisite gold will take longer than finding magical items: Find magical items.
- Else Gather gold and buy from auction house.
- If: Crafting materials are more expense than buying magical items from shops: Buy items from shops, salvage materials, post on auction house for profit until price drops below viability.
Credit to LessPop_MoreFizz for the original information and inspiration.
Best Answer
In general, I'd suggest cashing them in for gold. The auction house is a far, far, better place to spend your money.
If you break down items, you're essentially saying that the components are worth more than the sale value of the item - in most cases, this is not true. Purchasing components at the auction house is frequently a cheaper alternative. Some very low level magical items are worth more as crafting components, but the difference is so slight it's not worth the additional effort.
You then have to craft items at the blacksmith. Unless you are targeting a specific Legendary item, you're gambling with your money and your components. Chances are you're going to end up with a lot of "garbage" magical items with worthless enchantments as a result. This costs you both money and components. When you add this to the money you essentially "lost" by not selling the item in the first place, you're likely to be far into the red on a typical blacksmith transaction.
By contrast, going to the auction house, you can filter the list for rares with low buyout prices, and get just the enchantments you want, for a fraction of the cost of crafting it yourself. If you sell your magic items (and poor quality rares) to the vendors, and spend that money on the auction house instead, I guarantee you will get a much larger bang for your buck - at least until you get into the higher difficulties.