Does it matter where I sell treasure?

[bariumdose]

I'm used to playing Temple of Elemental Evil for the PC which is why I'm asking this question. In IWD, are there certain shops where I would get a better price for selling gems and other jewels that I get as the spoils of war? In ToEE, there's a jeweler who pays top dollar for such items as opposed to, say, the blacksmith who'd rather buy and sell weapons and armor.

[Aerich]

From what I remember, most of the shopkeepers pay the same, except for the guy on the 4th level of the Severed Hand, who pays better.

[DaveO]

After selling items the first time, you've 'flooded' the merchant market and get lower returns there. What I mean by this is if you sell one +1 sword, the next one will get less money. So make sure you spread the wealth buy holding on to enchanted items and selling other things that have a set return value.

[Ravager]

Or you can fill 1 character's inventory with items of the same type, select them all and sell them at the same time, which is what I did with Yeti Pelts.

[bariumdose]

Thank you everyone for the sound advice. My econ professor would say that there is an elastic demand curve (price goes down as supply goes up) with regard to selling the Yeti pelts and the thousands of goblin battle axes you accumulate in this game.

One question, though: I'm somewhat leery of selling any "special" items I find because I don't know if they're are needed in a quest in the future. I assume if I see more than one of something I find, like pelts of the same animal, it's ok to sell them without botching a future quest because I don't have the item anymore. Anybody have a list of "safe-to-sell" items?

[Ravager]

Generally the game will either not allow you to sell plot items, consider them worthless to merchants or the game will allow you to buy them back (that's the case with keys).

[Aerich]

Yeah, anything with a price is generally safe to sell. However, there are a few quest items I can think of that may be sold; however, you will find out about the quest before you get the items.

A handy tip is to check your journal. The journal usually makes a note of quest items.


The items I am thinking about that could be sold are: (SPOILERS)
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For sure, the Mythal Theory book for Orrick, and possibly the pure water, seeds, birds, and squirrels for the Severed Hand gardener.

[bariumdose]

I have noticed, at least in Kuldahar, that certain merchants will pay a higher price for items than others.

Assuming you have someone in your party that is maxed out in Charisma and is interacting with the merchant, I've noticed that Gerth's Equipment Shoppe will pay, initially, 60 gp for a Yeti pelt compared to Conlan the Smithy who pays only 50 gp initially (when I say initially I'm referring to the first sale of an item before the price drops upon subsequent sales of the same item to the merchant). This is a little odd, since one of the townspeople actually recommends that you sell the Yeti pelt to Conlan since he gives a good price for them.

Also, Gerth seems to pay somewhat more for jewels and other precious stones and some magical weapons that are not slashing/piercing/bludgeoning types or that are not armor. Orrick the Grey pays out more for arcane spell scrolls. Conlan the Smithy seems to pay well for weapons and armor. Fiddlebender may be apt to buy back potions at a premium, since he seems to specialize in potion brewing.

[Ravager]

I think Conlan's price for pelts is set to 50gp in all cases. It's probably unaffected by Charisma. It always starts at 50gp for me.
As for the others, they seem to pay more for the things that they specialise in as you say.