Jewelcrafting Panther Mount is Awesome

[Sophistique]

As others have said, the mats are the telling point and it depends if you are self sufficent. For me, basically the cost is the Orb of Mystery (so 18k) per Panther I make. So far I have 3 (Red, Blue & Green).

If you can't make everything, then you're looking at (for example sake, let's go with the Jade Panther):

20 x Wild Jade - to make these, it's 20 x Golden Lotus plus 20 x Alexandrite - made by Alchemists (you can get lucky by getting a Transmute Master Alchemist to do the transmutes for you and you may get a few extra)
Golden Lotus - only farmed by Herbalists. Not sure on prices over the servers, but say 100-800 gold each
Alexandrite - found when JC's prospect ore a long with many other stones. Can also be found in some mining nodes if you have the special pick.

4 x Living Steel - to make these, it's 6 x Trillium bar per Living Steel (or 3 x Trillium Bar & 3 x Spirit of Harmony). Made by Alchemists - again, getting a transmute master will help with the procs if you are lucky. This also has a daily cool down, so you can only make one per day (unless you use the 3 x Spirit of Harmony option)
Trillium Bar - either smelted from Black and White Trillium ore by a miner, or you can get an Alchemist to transmute 60 bars of Ghost Iron Bar's into the 6 Trillium Bars

Serpent's Eye - made when combining 10 x Sparkling Shards, and these are found when prospecting through Ore. You do not have to be a JC to combine them and make the Serpent's Eye however, so you can get a JC to prospect the ore for you and hand you the Shards.

So 21k is a good buy in my opinion because you're getting all of the above for 3,000 gold

If you're wondering, the professions I have to get my Panthers are a Transmute Master Alchemist and a Miner - I have JC's in guild who are happy to do the Prospecting and making the mounts for me at no charge

[Royi]

I know! I got the sapphire panther too
Its so cute to be on a kitty when your a Horde :3
Even if it costs me 30k back then, it was worth it for me~

My reasoning, I was never able to get the ZG Tiger mount and never saw the newer ZG Panther either. I ended up getting Sapphire for 23k and I was happy.

I dont think I'll use it much for flying (feels a tad odd to fly a panther) but I'll definately use it in BG's and with lower level toons (that is until I get exhalted with Shado-Pan at least).

I like how his paws sparkle

[Nachtwulf]

Honestly, given the fact that wild jade is apparently one of the least-popular rare stones, and golden lotus are rare as hell, you'd probably do a lot better just saving up the ones you prospect or buying a few jades outright. Unless you're swimming in spirits of harmony anyway, and I don't really know anyone that is.

On my server, living steel is about 780g/ea. I estimated that with buying mats, a ruby panther would run you nearly 29k JUST in mats. Obviously cheaper if you have a capped miner and alchemist doing xmutes for you, but unless those are your alts, you better do something nice for them since that's burning their daily transmute for almost two weeks straight.