vorius - it's not worth the effort even with the new BOD given for many of them
Here's how BODs break down
50% Weapons / 50% Armor/shield/Helm
All weapons are iron
of the other 50%
roughly 28% are combinables (fit large BODs, or the LBODS themselves)
22% are the non-combinables.
of the non-combinables
Depending on the Blacksmith skill of the person turning them in...
70-109.9: 11% iron, 11% Colored (50/50 split)
110.0-119.9: 6.6% iron, 15.4% colored (30/70 split)
120: 2.2% iron, 19.8% colored (10/90 split).
of these 50% are normal, 50% are exceptional.
Note that, based on ancient references that the ore color distribution is mirrored in the metal type distribution of BODs, then the non-combinable smalls that are worth keeping are even more rare.
OF small BODs
Iron BODs (including weapons, non-combinables and combinable armor): 75% at GM, 65% at Elder, 55% at Legendary
Colored Combinables: 13.54% at GM, 19% at Elder, 24.375% at Legendary
Colored Non-Combinables: 11.46% at GM, 16% at Elder, 20.625% at Legendary
Halve these numbers to get the Normal/EX numbers.
Of the colored small BODs that give POF
20% POF chance:
Bronze Normal 20: 2.333% of normal Colored BODs.
Gold Normal 10 & Gold Normal 15: 3.733% of Normal Colored BODs
Total: 6.1% of normal colored smalls
90% POF chance:
Gold Normal 20: 1.866% of normal Colored BODs
Agapite Normal 10 & Normal 15: 2.8% of normal Colored BODs
Total: 4.666% of normal colored smalls
Exceptional:
20% chance of POF:
DC Ex 10 & EX 15: 7.4666% of Exceptional colored BODs
90% chance of POF:
DC EX 20: 3.733% of Exceptional colored BODs
Shadow Ex 10 & Ex 15: 6.533% of exceptional colored BODs
Total: 10.266% of exceptional colored BODs.
Only 14% of Exceptional colored BODs, and 10.766% of Normal Colored BODs, have any chance of a worthwhile return exceeding the amount invested in filling it, if turned in small. Multiply these by 25% (GM), 35% (Elder) or 45% (Legendary), then divide by for the actual percentages of all BODs these amount to. Not many at all.
Compared with the sheer volume of iron BODs you can turn in to get new BODs (75% to 55% of all smalls, depending on skill, and you can buy the stuff for the normal BODs from NPC vendors!), you're better off saving your colored ingots for those few POF BODs, and for filling the sets you complete by turn-in/replace of the Iron BODs. You fill all BODs, you'll run out of colored ingots long before you run out of BODs.
As for ingot prices, I personally think that DC or shadow are overpriced at more than 40 GP per, Copper & bronze at about 60 per, and gold & higher typically should be 80-120 per. Part of the problem is that some of the ingots are worth hundreds of gold equivalent per ingot at the library (39 points x15 gold for Valorite, or 1 ingot worth just under 600 gold), and you have to compete with those people trying to cheap their way into stocking their Library Talisman vendors on some shards (leather ran into the same problem, and horned & barbed leather went up to 150 & 225 gold per on some shards for a while - before many vendors just gave up trying to stock them, or started charging more to where it was cheaper for the people buying it for library donation found checks cheaper).