Skyrim Merchant Inventory – Are Items Permanently Stored?

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This answer in the question, "Can you rebuy things from fences if they don't sell that item in skyrim?" states that:

Unique items (e.g. Dragon Claws) remain in the inventory of the storekeepers indefinitely. However items such as armour, whilst they will remain for a day or so, are liable to be lost permanently when the storekeeper's merchandise chest resets.

Aside from Dragon Claws, are there other "unique" items which will stay in a merchant's inventory forever? What determines if an item is considered "unique"?

I would like to know as I regularly sell items I don't need to merchants, so they can be "deleted" in the game when the merchants have their inventory reset. I am not sure which items will indeed be removed with a merchant inventory reset.

Best Answer

I've had several items stay far, far, longer than a day in a vendor's shop before. I am not sure if they stay indefinitely, though they seem to take a lot of time to go away.

The UESP wiki lists two distinct types of permanent items:

Type 1 - Permanent (fully)

  • Keep their RefID number, when dropped into the world
  • Do not lose any of their persistent traits when dropped into the world

Type 2 - Permanent (until dropped)

  • May keep or lose their RefID number, when dropped into the world
  • Lose any or all of their persistent traits when first dropped into the world.

List of permanent items

The following items were found to be fully permanent:

  1. Aetherial Crown [DG]
  2. Ebony Blade
  3. The Gauldur Amulet
  4. Zephyr [DG]

The following items were found to be permanent until dropped (or placed on a weapon plaque):

  1. Calcelmo's Ring
  2. Declaration of War [DB]
  3. Eduj
  4. Emerald Dragon Claw
  5. Halldir's Staff - the one you get from Halldir's ash pile, not the one which drops near it
  6. Ironhand Gauntlets - looted from Hajvarr Iron-Hand
  7. Iron Dragon Claw
  8. Journals of Ralys Sedaris [DB] - all volumes
  9. Klimmek's Supplies
  10. Letter from a Friend - all instances
  11. Okin
  12. Ruby Dragon Claw
  13. Saerek's Skull Key - only if you do not use it to awaken Otar the Mad (awaken him with shout or rune spell instead)
  14. Staff of Hag's Wrath
  15. The Aetherium Wars [DG] - only the first copy, obtained before or during associated quest
  16. Torsten's Skull Key - only if you do not use it to awaken Otar the Mad (awaken him with shout or rune spell instead)
  17. Whiterun guard's armor, shield, helmet, gloves and boots - looted from Mirmulnir

Note: Permanent weapons may fail to prevent corpses from disappearing, although they will remain in respawning containers.

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