[Tuco]

I honestly don't think that epic gems will be that expensive. There will be way too many people like spronk with a bazillion badges and too many people like me who will calculate how many more heroics they need to do to get enough badges to get the epic gems for a full set of gear.

It's possible that there will be enough scrubs who don't prepare for the patch and will need to buy them off the AH, but it's hard to imagine that the AH won't be immediately flooded with cheap gems.

Additionally, because the recipes are gotten using jewelcrafter's tokens and not rare drops, most guilds will have a JC with all the recipes very quickly, dropping the value of taking a raw gem and turning it into a specific one.