I want to expand my pastures and have some Emu's and other Animals, but one male and one female cost 1000 value, 500 each. Since currency cannot be stored, you have to trade each animal in one go.
So which items have the highest value for the trader, which can be easily mass crafted and also do not hurt my settlement when selling it?
The highest value items are Jewelry, especially the variants with gems. A simple malachite necklace without gem is just worth 40 but it scales with metal quality up to 2000 for a platinum necklace. Together with the modifier for Quality, prices can go far above 10000 for a single legendary gemmed platinum necklace.
However, since higher value ore is hard to get early on, mass-producing Statuettes is usually easier. A clay statuette is worth 16 and requires just one clay clump and a Kiln to produce. You can just replace all clay tiles in your fortress with dirt and get a nice amount of clay to turn into statuettes. Later on, Bone Statuettes are a nice way to get rid of the bones of all the butchered Yaks and keeps your Artisan busy.
Another alternative are Pet Rocks which can also be mass-produced and require just stone which you will have a huge surplus of anyways. They are just worth 10 a piece but due to the abundance of stone, producing 50 or 100 of them is no problem.
