Turning a profit in Stardew Valley can be difficult at times, especially in the early years. It can be enticing to see that those diamonds are worth almost a thousand gold and then so difficult to will yourself against throwing them in the shipping bin. There are a few items that, despite how expensive they are, you shouldn’t sell for various reasons.

Many players believe in keeping a copy (or a few copies) of every item, just in case. Some items also duplicate themselves if you use them properly, so you should use the first one instead of selling it. Here are the most important items to keep or use instead of selling, despite how much money you could make.

15 Building Resources

The basic material resources in the game are Wood, Stone, Hardwood, Sap, Fiber, Coal, and Clay, and a few other things. They don’t sell for a ton of money, but in the early days of the game, it’s hard to look at that stack of 100 Hardwood and ignore the fact that you could get a nice 1,500 gold for it.

But, these items will always be necessary for crafting, building farm structures, and much, much more. Resist the urge to throw the extras in the bin — you’ll thank yourself in the future.

14 Low-Quality Crops

Crops come in three quality levels: regular, silver, and gold. Gold- and silver-quality crops sell for more than the base sell price, so you should definitely sell them early on before you can craft them into anything better. This will likely be your main source of income in the first year of the game.

However, you should absolutely hang on to base-quality crops. These can be used for making wine, jelly, juice, pickles, and other artisan goods that sell for a much higher profit. Since these artisan goods sell for a multiplier of the base quality price, it isn’t as profitable to process the higher-quality crops. Also, many crops are used in recipes, so you’ll want a stocked fridge.

13 Community Center Bundle Items

Should you decide to pursue the Community Center restoration rather than purchase a Joja membership, you’ll be tasked with providing the correct items for a couple dozen bundles. Some of these items are much harder to get your hands on than others.

Regardless, you should try to focus on giving the first of an item to the bundles before selling it. Sure, you can usually find another of that item, but the rewards for the Community Center are so good that they should be prioritized over the handfuls of gold you’ll earn for just selling the item instead. Once you’ve finished the Community Center (and the secret Missing bundle), sell away.

The 1.5 update to the game brought a new game setting, too: Remixed Community Center Bundles. This allows you to change which items are required for the Community Center. So, if you’re a veteran player who has many of the Bundle requirements memorized, you’ll want to double-check the new ones if you select the Remixed setting.

12 Unprocessed Animal Products

Almost every animal product can be processed into something better — and more profitable. Eggs, milk, wool, truffles, and all the rest should always be turned into these artisan goods before you toss them into the shipping bin.

The cost to build the right machinery, whether it’s a mayonnaise maker or cheese press, is usually pretty low. It’s always better to process the raw animal goods into their respective artisan goods before selling them. A regular egg sells for 50 gold, while the base price for a jar of mayonnaise is almost quadruple ― 190 gold.

The 1.4 update, Fish Ponds were added, introducing Roe and the ability to process it. It’s not technically an animal product by the game’s definition, but we’re including it here because it’s much the same instruction — process it, don’t sell it. Then, in the 1.5 update, some new animal products were also added that shouldn’t be sold: ostrich eggs and golden eggs. Read on for more information.

Golden Eggs

After achieving a 100% Perfection level, you can start raising golden chickens. These chickens lay golden eggs, which will sell for 500g. However, place them into a mayo machine and they’ll produce three jars of gold-quality mayonnaise. These sell for 285g, which, multiplied by three, means 855g for processing the egg instead. If you have the Rancher and Artisan professions, that price increases to 342g and 399g per mayo respectively, as well.

Ostrich Eggs

Ostriches, the other new animal added, will lay ostrich eggs. These sell for 600g at normal quality, up to 1,200g at iridium-quality, but will produce 10 mayo at the same quality as the egg. Iridium-quality mayo sells for 380g without the Rancher or Artisan professions, meaning a nice profit of 3,800g per processed egg.

Roe (Especially Sturgeon Roe)

After placing most types of fish into a Fish Pond, they’ll produce Roe. This can be sold as-is, but it won’t fetch very much cash. Throw it into a preserves jar and it’ll make Aged Roe, which will sell for double.

Sturgeon Roe is a special case. By placing it in a preserves jar, it’ll produce Caviar. This special delicacy will sell for 500g, or 700g with the Artisan Profession. Considering unprocessed Sturgeon Roe sells for 130g, that’s quite the increase.

11 Grange Fair Display Winners

It’s difficult to win the Grange Display contest in the first couple of years. Once you do find a combination of items that will nab first place, you should keep them in a chest tucked away somewhere. This way, you can use the same nine items to win every year following that, should you so desire.

Don’t sell these items! You can win the Grange Display contest with nine items that come to a pretty low sales total. It’s much better to use them to win those precious star tokens — the Stardrop is 2,000 tokens.

10 Iridium Bars

Iridium bars sell for a beautiful 1,000 gold (or 1,500 if you have the Blacksmith Profession). It can be pretty hard to look at that total and not toss them in the shipping bin. But, resist that urge.

Iridium bars are always in short supply, and they are used for a ton of different purposes, include the crafting of a lot of machinery. Dedicate a handful of them (and the other required items) to making some Crystalariums, toss a couple diamonds into them, and you’ll have an endless supply of money. That’s much better than just selling the iridium bars (or any metal bars, for that matter) on their own.

9 Winter Roots

Many players write off the Winter season as a time to move away from farming and focus on mining, fishing, or other endeavors. However, Winter farming can actually be very lucrative if you do it right. The Winter Seeds available to you can be used to grow Crystal Fruits, Crocus, Winter Roots, and Snow Yams, which sell for a decent price.

Winter Roots, which are probably the most common of the Winter forageables, can be thrown into a seed maker to produce a few bags of Winter Seeds. Ignore the sell price of Winter Roots and focus on using them to make seeds.

8 Regular Wine

Wine and other alcoholic beverages are one of the most profitable endeavors you can undertake as a farmer. Choosing the most expensive fruits to become wines will help bring in the big bucks, so many players grow Ancient Fruit and Starfruit specifically to turn into wine.

There’s no point in selling that expensive Starfruit wine, though, if you have empty Casks in the basement of your house. Letting wine sit until it becomes Iridium quality will double its value, meaning a bottle of Iridium-quality Starfruit wine will fetch you 6,300 gold if you have the Artisan Profession.

7 Slime

Slime is a product that can be found by killing Slime monsters or harvesting Slime Balls produced by Slimes raised within a Slime Hutch. It can be used in several handy recipes, such as the Oil Maker, Slime Incubator, and Wild Bait, but monetarily it doesn’t fare well, only pulling 5 gold each.

In order to make any substantial money from raising Slimes, it’s better to save up Slime in order to convert into Slime Eggs via the Slime Egg-Press. It takes 20 in-game hours to convert 100 Slime into an egg, which will randomly result in a Green, Blue, Red, or Purple Slime Egg. Green Slime Eggs sell for 1,000 gold, but Purple Slime Eggs go for 5,000 gold, making Slime Eggs a much more profitable use of Slime.

This monster drop is also used in some crafting recipes, so be sure to save some if you need it!

6 Cloth

Thanks to the introduction of Clothing in one of the game’s many updates, Cloth is no longer just an expensive item that you’ll use here and there but otherwise chuck into the shipping bin. Now, instead of just hats, dozens of unique clothing items can be worn and swapped out easily by using furniture such as wardrobes to store clothes.

Once you gain access to Sheep (or Rabbits), you should save all their wool for the many fashionable and ridiculous outfits that can be made with Cloth, such as an Iridium Breastplate or a Jester Shirt. Being fashionable is just another job for a hardworking farmer.

5 Warp Totem Ingredients

As you get later into the game, you’ll find that there is something even more precious than gold: Time. Much of the time spent running, horseriding, or minecarting from destination to destination could be saved through the use of Warp Totems, the recipes for which can be bought or unlocked as you upgrade your Foraging skill. These Totems can warp you to a location instantly, saving the hassle of walking down to the Beach or taking the bus to Calico Desert. If you’re down in the mines at 1:30 AM, just use a Farm Warp Totem to return home instantly and not pass out 80 levels underground.

Totem recipes often require ingredients from the location you are warped to, such as Coconuts for a Desert Warp Totem or Coral for a Beach Warp Totem. This is exactly why saving resources will save countless time in the long run, especially as Coconuts and Coral can only be foraged and not grown.

4 Museum Items

Completing the Museum collection is no easy feat — it takes a ton of dedication, hunting for artifacts, and cracking open geodes. A lot of these items sell for a good price, especially the rarer minerals and gems. But, there will always be more of these items, so you should focus on donating the first one in almost every case.

The benefits are plentiful: not only will a cumulative total of donated artifacts unlock special items and secret areas, but some donations will reward specific items, such as life-size Sloth bones or a Flute Block which will play a musical note when you walk by it.

With the exception of the Prismatic Shard, all gems can be placed into a Crystalarium to duplicate them infinitely, as well. So, if you really want to sell some diamonds, throw one in a Crystalarium, donate the first one it produces, and sell the rest.

3 Ancient Seeds

One particular Museum artifact that should never be sold is the Ancient Seed. Not only does it sell terribly, but upon donating it to the Museum, Gunther will reward you with the recipe for crafting new Ancient Seeds. This recipe is one of the few ways to obtain the seeds needed for growing Ancient Fruit, one of the game’s most expensive crops.

The recipe itself consists of one Ancient Seed, meaning that you’ll have to hunt vigorously for artifacts in order to find another seed, and selling it simply makes no sense when the possible revenue is so great. Luckily, throwing crops into a Seed Maker can often yield an Ancient Seed, so you shouldn’t have too much finding more.

2 Dinosaur Eggs

As this list has shown so far, there are few things that should be used before being donated to the Museum or sold. The most recommended of these types of items among fans is the Dinosaur Egg. This artifact is hard to get your hands on the first time, and it’s tempting to toss it into the Museum with everything else or sell for a nice few hundred gold.

However, if you incubate this egg in your coop, it’ll hatch into a new dinosaur, which will then produce endless eggs. Do what you want with the newer eggs, just make sure you incubate the first one, because you might not be able to find another for a long time.

1 Prismatic Shards

The other item that should always be used before donation or sale is the Prismatic Shard. These rainbow minerals are sometimes seemingly-impossible to find, but there are ways to locate them. They count as one of the items that can be sold to the museum, but more temptingly, sell for 2,000 gold (2,600 with the Gemologist profession).

Considering how many things these rocks are used for, they should almost never be sold, unless you’re incredibly lucky and somehow have a stockpile of them. They’re used to obtain the Galaxy Sword, dismiss children, finish the Missing Bundle (as one of the options), change the colors of Junimos, create clothing, and much more. Don’t sell them!

Now, with the most recent update to the game, Prismatic Shards have more uses, but there are also more ways to obtain them. With Prismatic Shards, you can enchant tools and weapons in the Forge on Ginger Island, giving them cool bonus effects.

If you manage to achieve 100% Perfection (which can be tracked in Qi’s Walnut Room), you will be given the Statue of True Perfection, which produces a Prismatic Shard every single day. Now that’s a nice profit!

NEXT: Stardew Valley: Complete Guide And Walkthrough