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I've experienced a bug with multiple merchants in Skyrim. If you get the merchant above 42750 gold, say, with training, you'll run into a problem when you sell to them. After the merchant's gold is reduced to 42750, you'll no longer gain any gold from selling to them. They will still take your item, and no warning prompt is given.

I've experienced this bug with both Florentius and Tolfdir. Someone else has experienced this with Babette.

http://elderscrolls.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:833388

On that thread, someone mentioned that merchants get bugged once they go above 30k gold.

I already have unofficial legendary edition patch. So I wish to ask the following questions.

  1. Does this apply to all merchants?

  2. Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?

  3. Why does this occur?

  4. Can this be fixed?

  5. Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

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  • What is an unofficial legendary edition patch?
    – Timmy Jim
    Feb 4, 2017 at 21:42
  • It is a mod on skyrim nexus, that fixes a lot of the bugs in skyrim. There originally was a patch for the vanilla game, and each of the 3 DLCs. The legendary edition patch is one mod which deals with everything together. nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/71214? Feb 4, 2017 at 21:44

3 Answers 3

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Questions: Does this apply to all merchants?

Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?

Why does this occur?

Can this be fixed?

Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

Answers: Possibly. I haven't had the time to go around to every merchant and add 30K gold to their salary ha-ha. All I know is that it effects most merchants that you can either train with them, or they sell expensive items.

It usually breaks around 30K gold - 40K gold. It's due to the fact that NPCs don't hold much data. It's pretty hard to explain, but I don't think Bethesda programmed the merchants to hold more than 40K gold.

It probably can't be easily fixed. From user mojodajojo on nexusmods:

However, you can script a merchant's chest to remove excess gold when it gets over a certain amount.

Probably not to train too much. You can easily level up by just using your weapon, or lock picking. Hope this helped!

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  • 1
    It looks like you are quoting a 'Poster 20', can you provide a link to the source for reference?
    – Angzuril
    Feb 5, 2017 at 17:22
  • Sorry, I meant mojodajojo:forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/…
    – riverai
    Feb 6, 2017 at 16:18
  • Somewhat unlikely, 42750 is a 16 bit (binary) number, however it's first four digits are 1010, which means that not only it means it could store more gold, but also means that it can store up to 65536 gold (1111 1111 1111) since it's counted in N and not in Z.
    – Oak
    Feb 6, 2017 at 22:00
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In order to express negative values in a binary System one uses signed Datatypes. Means the first bit is the sign (0 means +, 1 means -).

Unsigned word(or integer) 32767 + 1 = 32768 / signed word 32767 + 1 = -32768

That is why this so called 'bug' happens if you go above 32767. It was unwise to use:

  1. a signed Type since there are not negative gold amounts and
  2. only give it 2byte size

No known fix unless someone is able the recompile the core is guess. There are, like mentioned, only mods that bypass this issue, but not fix it.

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  1. Does this apply to all merchants?

Yes.

  1. Do the merchants break above 30k gold, or above 42750 gold?
  2. Why does this occur?
  3. [...]
  4. Are there anything else I should be careful about when dealing with merchants?

From the UESP wiki's "Merchants - Bugs" article:

If the vendor's gold goes above 32767 (the internal 15-bit limit), then you sell items to them, you do not receive any gold (but will receive Speech experience). This is likely to trigger whenever you buy a lot of expensive items from the merchant (or high level training) before selling your goods.


  1. Can this be fixed?

Yes. You can install a mod to fix this bug:

Both of the above mods require Skyrim Script Extender (SKSE).

Barter Fix

This is a SKSE plugin which fixes an issue where the player can't get any money from selling when merchant's on-hand golds reach a certain value.

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  • Minor correction now. Sales Overflow Solved does not work on the latest version of Skyrim 1.6 due to being an SKSE plugin and not having updated for the latest SKSE. It looks like Barter Bug Fix is the current compatible alternative. Aug 26, 2022 at 14:09
  • @TylerShellberg Thanks for that info. I've updated the answer. Aug 27, 2022 at 0:26

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