If your charisma is high enough you won't really lose money making
non-magical stuff to work on your skill. From my experiments I found I
was losing 2 coppers when buying/selling non magical stuff. With a
skill of 21, Jasper was safe for me to work. Carnelian (the next step
up on the merchant I saw) was too hard for me.

by the way I haven't seen any of my posts show up today, are people
getting these?

<snip>.. but I suppose that you can sell them for more...with a base
skill of 21, I dont want to waste money making non-magic rings. With
which
stone do you think I can start practice with? do I have to start from
malachite? can I start with Onyx? or even more expensive stones? thanks
for
the help.
Also, can you tell me which rings you found out are the best to sell to
players?
<snip>