ITEM FRAME

A Cartographer at expert sells an item frame for 7 emeralds, and that number sits at the pricier end of his own sheet even though the frame itself is one of the cheapest things a crafting grid can produce. The recipe only asks for 8 stick and 1 leather. The villager is not selling scarcity, he is selling the trip to a mob for the leather and a couple of trees for the sticks.

Where the trade earns its keep is scale. A build with dozens of frames lined up for maps or item displays eats leather fast, and a Cartographer who has already reached expert turns that whole errand into a flat emerald cost instead, no different from buying any other decoration off his shelf.

One seller, one price. The Cartographer asks 7 emeralds for 1 item frame once he reaches expert, and the figure is fixed in the trade file rather than rolled inside a range, so a second Cartographer at the same tier charges exactly the same.

No villager buys an item frame back off you. It only ever moves one direction, out of the Cartographer's slot and into your inventory, until all 12 uses on the offer are gone and it locks for a restock.

Item Frame sells for as little as 7 emeralds, from the Cartographer at the Expert tier, and 2 of the other 3 cost less. The price is fixed rather than rolled, so a second Cartographer will quote you exactly the same.

The Cartographer at its expert tier asks 7 emeralds for an item frame. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

7 acacia boats against 224 rotten flesh for the same 7 emeralds, 32 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Butcher at 4.4 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted.

A cartography table claims any unemployed villager as a Cartographer right away, but item frame is not on his opening shelf. He starts at novice and only reaches expert, unlocked at 150 trade experience, after enough completed trades along the way.

Every sale before that point pays toward the same total, and this offer itself pays 15 experience once it opens, so 7 more purchases from it alone would already cover the next threshold.

Once open, the slot sells 12 frames before locking, and a villager restocks at most twice a Minecraft day, so 24 is the most one Cartographer will ever produce between sunrises.

12 frames close the slot out, and the villager needs 2 real minutes back at his cartography table before it opens again. A Minecraft day runs 20 real minutes, long enough for exactly two of those refills to land.

Stretched across a full day that puts one Cartographer at 24 frames for 168 emeralds total, the ceiling for a single villager no matter how much longer you wait around.

Check a chest for spare sticks and leather before spending emeralds here. A full slot still runs 12 frames for 84 emeralds, real money for something a crafting grid makes almost for free.

Where the emeralds come from: the same Cartographer pays an emerald for a single compass, the cheapest thing he sells back at you and an easy way to fund the frames you are buying.

84 emeralds for a full slot is enough that curing a zombie Cartographer first pays for itself. The discount lands on every price he quotes afterward, item frame included, and it never expires. How curing works.

Also on the Cartographer's list: banner, banner pattern (globe), woodland explorer map, paper, empty map, and glass pane.

A frame is leather over eight sticks, cheap enough that most people place them by the dozen above chests to show what is inside. An item in a frame can be rotated in eight steps, which is also how a frame becomes a comparator signal: each rotation is one step stronger.

A map inside a frame behaves differently from anything else. Frames holding maps line up into a single large picture on a wall, and the map keeps updating as you explore, which is the standard way a base ends up with a working wall map of the area.

A glow item frame is an ordinary one with a glow ink sac, and the item inside stays visible in the dark. That is the version worth using for a sign on an unlit corridor.

A map in a frame is the other trick. Frames placed in a grid, each holding one map of the right area, build a wall map that keeps updating as anybody carries a copy, and the frames disappear visually behind the map itself.

An item in a frame can be turned in eight steps, and a comparator reads which step it is on, which is the simplest hidden switch in the game: turn the item, open the door.