The idea behind this mod was to discourage fast-travelling to sell junk in a lore-friendly manner. As I attempted to determine the least time-consuming and most compatible way to do that, it expanded into a collection of small mods that change various aspects of the economy.


Have you ever noticed that Skyrim is filled with weapons and armor? If there were a profitable market for used weapons and armor, certainly one of the well-armed bandit camps filled would take a captured cart around to Skyrim's many dungeons, looted the dungeons dry, and made a handy profit. If bandits willing to risk their lives to make an easy buck don't think it is a good way to make money, it shouldn't be a lucrative business for the dragonborn. 

This mod addresses the above problem by, in sum, by making merchants that buy weapons and armor offer terrible prices. Specifically, it affects the following:

Blacksmiths: Blacksmiths in Skyrim are in the business of selling weapons and armor they make. They take pride in their skill and don't want to tarnish their reputations by selling used goods or goods made by an unproven rookie who just started smithing a week ago. They will still buy items but offer terrible prices compared to other merchants. This also applies to Fletchers and Quartermasters.

Blacksmith Assistants: Some blacksmiths assign the responsibility of keeping a well-stocked forge to their apprentices. These apprentices will buy and sell ore and ingots at normal prices. If the blacksmith dies, assistants will take over the main store, including the poor prices.

General Goods: There are now two types of general goods merchants. Some sell used goods but offer terrible prices in order to ensure a profit (this includes Kajit Caravans). Others focus on general supplies - they offer normal prices but don't offer weapons.

Merchant Perk: Although this mod doesn't change the merchant perk, it does make the perk more valuable as it allows you to sell weapons and armor to merchants that offer normal prices.

Master Trader: Obtaining the master trader perk will make merchants offer normal prices again.

Compatibility: This mod functions predominately by using a simple script that runs once and adds a perk to the player. However, it does make a few changes to merchant services and might conflict with other economy mods.


The goal of this mod is to make low-level smithing unprofitable, forcing a player to choose between selling resources for a profit or using them to make gear to level smithing. A character that doesn't want to be a smith shouldn't feel compelled to make early iron and leather gear just because they sell better than the raw materials. While Used Weapons & Armor makes it less profitable to sell looted gear, it doesn't solve the problem that certain armor (especially cuirasses) provide a substantial profit over the materials used to make them.

This mod changes the value of iron, steel and leather armor, doubles the value of leather and animal hides goods, increases the value of iron ore to 4, the value of iron ingots to 8, and makes it so 2 iron ore are needed to make one ingot. As a result, you will never need to visit a smelter or tanning rack unless you intend to be a smith and if you choose to be a smith, you won't be able to turn a profit until you have at least 2 perks invested.

I considered a complete rebalancing of all weapons and armor, because the relative prices in this game area  mess, but that would unbalance custom weapon and armor mods that are based off the original prices, so for compatibility reasons I limited the changes to just iron, leather and steel.