Stealing

Stealing involves the use of stealth and is the art of taking someone else's object for one's own. A character's effectivess in stealing is governed by Sneak and Agility. It's most effective when the character is in the shadows or when no other person can see the character when he/she is attempting to steal. Stay in stealth mode and make sure the "eye" crosshair is not bright gold -- that means the character can be seen.

Stolen items are marked with a red hand icon and honest merchants do not buy stolen goods. It is possible to launder items by enchanting the stolen piece, which creates a new unmarked magical item, or selling them to a fence and buying them back. To have access to a fence, you must join the Thieves Guild.

Removing the Stolen Item Flag
Removing the stolen flag can be done in one of three ways:


 * Selling the item to a fence. When the item is sold, the flag is removed, and you can buy the item back. However, this method can be very expensive. Stolen items cannot be sold to regular merchants. The items will not even show up in the list of things to be sold when you open up the merchant window. Stolen items can only be sold to a fence.
 * Neither working on PS3 (Tonilia) 05/02/12 KillingForPeace (talk) 17:13, February 5, 2012 (UTC)KillingForPeace
 * Returning the item to the owner. Due to the way the game handles stolen items, the stolen flag is only applied when the item is taken by someone who is not the owner. The flag is removed when the item is back in the possession of the owner, such as in the owner's body. Taking an item from a body does not count as stealing, though you most likely have to have the owner's body available before using this method.
 * This method does not always work in houses where multiple people live and places with merchants, because of how the interior area ownership is handled. Merchants have their items flagged as owned by 'someone else' to prevent them from being sold by the merchant, while multiple-resident housing simply has messy and unclear ownership.
 * Enchanting the item. By using a Sigil Stone or an Altar of Enchanting, you can enchant the stolen item and it will become a new, un-stolen item. This only works on armor, clothing, jewelry, and weapons.
 * NOTE: This seems to have been patch on the PS3 and PC, can anyone confirm this for the other platforms. Stolen items enchant still possess the Stolen tag.
 * Mix the item into a potion. Potions made from stolen ingredients are not considered stolen.
 * Smelt the ore into ingots, tan the hide into leather, tan the leather into strips, or make the bars, leather and/or other materials into a piece of gear. Since its form has changed, the items will no longer be marked as stolen.
 * Deposit the item into a chest, then have a follower steal from a chest, then trade... when you take back the stolen item the stolen flag will be removed. NOTE: it has to be a chest you "steal" from, it does not work with chests you can freely take items from.
 * Works on PS3 05/02/12 KillingForPeace (talk) 17:13, February 5, 2012 (UTC)KillingForPeace
 * Works on Xbox 360 as well (17/02/12, patch 1.4)
 * NOTE: This seems to have been patched out between the last time this article was updated up to the 1.3.1 patch on December 20th, 2011. Not sure exactly when the change was made, but stolen items placed in objects to be taken by a follower, and then trading said items, no longer removes the stolen tag.
 * NOTE: This added a stolen tag to several items that could not have been stolen, including Wabbajack and the Staff of Magnus. This happened whilst moving house, after instructing a companion to empty containers and weapon racks within Breezehome. Items taken after the companion reached her carry capacity were flagged as stolen when traded back. (xbox 1.3.1).
 * Drop the stolen item, then open console, then click on the item and type in the command "setownership". When you click the item, you will see the ID of the item in the middle of the screen. If it doesn't start with "ff" then you couldn't correctly click the item, so try again. After typing in the command "setownership" (without quotes), stolen tag will be removed. You can see this immediately with moving the cursor away from the item and then re-pointing the item.
 * Get caught steeling, pay the fine, then get your companion to steel your items back from the chest! (PS3)