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First off, before I get to the actual guide part of this post...this is my first post on these forums. I've been playing on Runescape since not long after it first came out in 2001, but around 2003, my original character was deleted for inactivity. I now make it a habbit to occasionally log on my characters, and this past time, I got rehooked.
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Mining for Money! (Wewt wewt?)
First off, leveling your mining skill has become significantly easier since the addition of the rune mysteries quest. Not only is there a low level mine with extremely easy access to a bank (east Varrock), but the mining is entirely uncompetitive. And let's not forget, rune essences will sell, unlike other low level ores.
If have never mined with your character before, by the time you get 1k rune ess, you should be at level 20 mining. I would suggest getting at least this far before going anywhere else to mine, but from this point, there are plenty of options, and what you decide to do should be based on an educated decision based off the advice I outline below. But either way, you should now be able to sell your 1k of rune ess for about 30k. And to lots of people, that's a lot of money.
From this point, my advice is to take your 30k and take a break from mining to develop one of two other skills.
If you're not interested in making your character a pure pk character, then you can level up your combat. This will be very important to allow better access to less crowded mines. There are other guides to leveling your combat level, I'm sure, but either way, while you're out and about leveling, make sure and do Doric's Quest (north of Falador), which gives you some mining experience. Once you've got yourself at a decent melee combat level (40ish), I suggest mining iron in the Edgeville cave. The cave has many names, so I'll describe it's location as best I can. There is one entrance between the Barbarian Village and Edgeville, and there is another entrance that is locked and requires the brass key to the northwest of the Cook's guild. The mine in this cave is a particularly good place to mine, as there are a handful of iron rocks, there are some coal rocks, and even some mith and silver rocks. The mine rarely has more than 2-3 people in it, but there are skeletons and other monsters throughout the cave which make it a dangerous place for low level players. If you use this cave, it's more effecient to go to the Edgeville bank, as it doesn't require an inventory slot dedicated to the brass key (trust me, I've tested ore rates both ways, and though Edgeville's bank is slightly farther, the extra ore slot compensates for it).
Your biggest concern at this point is not collecting iron in order to sell it, but rather to continue building your mining level. After you've got to level 30+ mining, you might want to try selling your iron, and then consider investing in an adam pick. Once you're above level 30, you can still stay at this mine. When there is no one else mining coal, try mining that if you'd like, but keep in mind, you can always mine ore like iron and silver faster, and overall get more experience quicker. Keep a focus on iron or silver until level 40+, which is when you can begin mining coal.
For a while, you will want to continue to mine (even coal) in this mine. Less crowded means less competition means more ore at a faster rate. Even if there is someone in the mine, try changing servers, and you're likely to find an empty mine. From this point, simply set your goal on reaching level 60 and getting into the miner's guild.
Once you hit 60, you'll want to switch over to the Dwarven mine. Use the entrance to the miner's guild just behind the bank. Walk through the miner's guild, if there are only a couple people mining, stay there and mine. If there's more than 5-6 people in there, you're better off leaving the guild. Keep in mind, in there, everyone is 60+ mining, and when you're still low 60s, they're all most likely better than you. Why compete with a handful of 70-99s, when you can just go outside the miner's guild to 5 other coal rocks at the back of the dwarven mines and compete with level 30-59 miners? And let's not forget that the dwarven mine coal rocks are closer together than the ones in the miners guild. Either way, once you get to 60+ and can mine coal efficiently, just keep mining and sell it in bulks of at least 1k, and you'll have millions before you know it.
Okay, so I talked on about the path if you choose to level your strength and defense and so forth up. But what about players that don't want to level any combat stats, or who are waiting because they want to be a pure pk on the same character? Your path is significantly different, allthough, the end result is the same = $$$.
First off, after reaching level 20 mining rune ess, if you don't want to raise combat levels, I suggest continueing to mine rune ess until maybe level 25 or 30. You might even have 2k rune ess by this level, and that ends up to be even more money.
But how do you go on from there without getting combat levels? There are a handful of quests that you'll find very important. First off, Doric's Quest is still useful, as it gives some mining experience. More importantly though, is the Knight's Sword Quest, which will take you from level 1 smithing to well over level 20. And why is this important? Because at level 20, you can smelt silver.
Go through and do any and all quests you can that will raise your crafting level. Then start working your crafting until you can smelt holy symbols or tiaras. Once you've reached this point, buy a mold (tiara gives slightly more crafting experience) and work your crafting up to level 40. (Find a crafting guide for the most effecient method of doing this, and don't be afraid to use the money you made of rune ess to help get your crafting level up, you'll get it all back soon.)
Once you have access to the crafting guild, it's not really worth doing any more crafting unless you just give up on mining and decide you'd like to make a living by crafting. Really what you want to do here is use the silver (mine clay and drop it while waiting for silver respawns) to get yourself to level 45-50 mining. There's no telling how many silver ore that'll put in your bank, but either way, you can sell it all.
Once you're above level 45 mining, it is worth your time to mine both silver and gold. If you're going to try to continue selling these ores, the best method is to mine just gold, but mine silver if you have to wait for gold to respawn, then drop the silver. Again, working your mining level up above 60. Once at level 60, you can use either the mining guild to mine coal or the crafting guild to mine silver and gold. It all depends on what you're most interested in, as well as who you know. It pays to know someone trying to power level crafting or smithing, who will pay unusually high amounts for bulk coal or gold or silver ore. Just figure out which you can sell easiest (not necessarily largest total sum, but which you can sell for a decent amount very quickly then get back to mining).
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Since that was awfully long, here's a short list of things to keep in mind while mining for profit.
1. When starting off (mining lvl 1), do the rune mysteries quest and mine rune ess to at least level 20.
2. Always get AT LEAST 5 levels past the requirement before you begin mining a particular ore. If you don't, it takes way to long to mine the ore, and it more effecient to mine the less valuable one (even at my current level, I can generally mine 4 iron ore in the time of 1 coal, or 2 silver in the time of 1 gold, which means the less valuable ore is quicker experience, and I can sell more of them at a faster rate, etc.)
3. The first three ores (clay, tin, copper) and the last three ores (mith, adam, rune) are extremely hard to sell. Coal is the easiest. Iron is probably most profitable when things like how long it takes to mine equal amounts of iron and coal are considered.
4. Don't bother buying a pick for every mining level. Bronze pick can work just fine for carrying you to the level for mith pick (or even adam pick) if you're mining just rune ess.
5. Selling ore for what it is commonly worth is not always as important as selling it quickly. If it means selling it for about 90% of it's value so that you can sell it immediately then get back down into the mine, then do so.
6. Always try selling ore while making a bank run and depositing what you've just mined.
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Just a few final notes...
First off, while smithing may be more profitable in the long run, this is a much quicker method for earning money. Once you've got a high mining level and plenty of money, you can go back and easily support your smithing ambitions and end up leveling that even quicker than you would have otherwise.
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*Note: This guide is based off my experience over the years playing as an F2P member. I am working on becoming a P2P member, and there are most likely significantly more effecient areas to mine for P2P members, however this guide should work excellently for F2P members. Also, it has been a long time since I used the Edgeville mine, so if my suggested combat level for using that mine is off, please correct me.
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