STICK

A Fletcher pays for stick, 32 of them for a single emerald, the worst rate anywhere on his own sheet. Nobody plans a trip around this one; it is what you do with a chest already overflowing from an evening of chopping trees for planks.

Where sticks come from matters more than what they fetch. Planks turn into sticks at a crafting table for free, and planks come from any log, so the supply is effectively unlimited for as long as there are trees standing. The same three ingredients his other shelves ask for, arrow, bow and crossbow, all draw on this exact same block, so selling the overflow here funds buying the finished weapon later.

One buyer, one tier: a Fletcher at novice takes 32 sticks and hands back 1 emerald. It is fixed in the trade file, so a second Fletcher at Novice offers the exact same rate, and no other profession touches sticks at all.

The best rate any villager offers is an emerald per 32 sticks, from the Fletcher, and nothing else on that list asks for more. No villager sells stick back, so it is emeralds out and nothing in.

One slot at the Fletcher takes 32 sticks a trade, 16 trades, 16 emeralds. 8 of the 72 villagers that pay emeralds, emptied out:

16 acacia boats against 384 flint for the same 16 emeralds, 24 times the carrying, and the shortest wait is the Fisherman at 10 real minutes of shelf, gathering not counted. Stick itself pays 32 an emerald, so 70 of the 72 ask less and 0 ask more.

The offer locks after 16 uses, and a villager restocks twice a Minecraft day at most, so 32 of these sales is the ceiling one Fletcher takes off your hands before the day cuts him off.

It sits at the very first tier. A villager who claimed a fletching table minutes ago is already buying sticks, no trade experience required and no earlier offer to unlock first.

512 sticks fill one slot, and the Fletcher needs 2 real minutes back at his table before he buys again. A Minecraft day, 20 real minutes, covers two of those refills.

A full day selling nets 1024 sticks off your hands for 32 emeralds. A single stack of 64 clears in one visit, since even the worst-rate item on his sheet still eats a whole stack in one sitting.

One villager clears 16 trades worth of sticks before he needs a restock. Where they go back into your inventory: the same Fletcher sells arrows, his cheapest offer, so the emeralds from a chest of scrap sticks can turn straight back into ammunition.

The rest of his sheet, worth a look on the same trip: flint, gravel, bow, string, crossbow and feather.

Two planks make four sticks, and one log makes four planks, so a single log turns into eight sticks with no tools involved. That is why the Fletcher's stick trade is the standard opening move for a new trading hall: the input is a tree.

Sticks are also the handle of almost everything: every tool and sword, ladders, fences, torches, rails and the frame of a painting. A chest of them is a chest of half finished tools, which is worth keeping in mind before selling the lot.

Everything here is paid for in emeralds, and a stick trade is the fastest way most players earn their first stack of them.

Every tool and every sword has a stick in it, and so do torches, ladders, fences, signs, item frames, armour stands, bows and arrows. It is the most reused ingredient in the game.

Bamboo makes them too, one bamboo pair for one stick, and bamboo grows faster than any tree, so a bamboo farm is the fastest stick supply in the game by a wide margin.

Sticks also burn as furnace fuel, badly, which is what to do with the overflow when the fletcher's slot is empty for the day.

One log turns into 8 Sticks, so the Fletcher's 32 Sticks per emerald come to 4 logs of wood. How to Build a Tree Farm in Minecraft covers the wood; bamboo crafts into Sticks as well, and How to Build an Automatic Bamboo Farm grows it on its own.