If equipped items become bound to you, where do all the items in the auction house come from?

Question

I bought a recipe for a shield, and equipped it hoping to sell it when I was done. Turns out you have to learn a recipe to use it, which makes it non-tradable anymore, and kind of useless afterwards.

I then bought the materials I was missing and completed the item. I then noticed that once equipped the item would be bound to me, and I wouldn't be able to sell it anymore.

If all items that are used can't be traded anymore, where do all the items in the auction house come from? Are some items found in depth? Is it just people continuing to craft items for the sole purpose of selling them to other people?

Answer 1

They are from people crafting them for the sole purpose of selling them. One of the good things about buying a recipe is that it is not only cheaper than buying the item itself, but you can then use the recipe to put together those raw materials again to make an item to sell, hopefully for more than you would've gotten for just the raw materials. Note that crafted items will sometimes get special attributes that you can't get on dropped/store-bought items, making them even more valuable.