UESP Forums

I just started the game and still exploring and quest hunting in the imperial city. I've broken into quite a few houses and have a boat-load of stolen stuff in my inventory. I know that any 'honest' merchants in the city won't buy them so I really want to know if there are NPCs in the imperial city who buy stolen items.
I tried the waterfront as I heard from locals and guards being the shady part of the city. Unfortunately, no merchants there although some pirates with their ship. I thought, being pirates, they would trade but one of them told me I'm not allowed on the ship. They would attack me.
Or are there any places nearby where i could start off?

You can either do to unlock Fences, or if you don't want to join the Guild, you can sell your goods to any of these people:

Hmm so i'll have to join the thieves guild first...I was hoping there would be npcs who wouldn't require unlocking fences first...but anyway, thanks i'll try it.

Manheim Maulhand is weird. He's not a member of the Thieves Guild, yet selling stolen items to him seems to raise the Fenced Gold amount used to advance the Thieves Guild Questline...I think.

I recall selling the Kvatch Shield I stole from Savlian's tent to him to get the flag removed. I hadn't joined the Guild yet, but when I did I had already fenced 40 gold (the amount Manheim payed for the Shield).

On an unrelated note, I am tempted to use console commands to lower Jensine's Responsibility enough so she accepts stolen goods as she has a line of script that compels her to seek out Fathis Ules ever Tirdas and Turdas (Tuesday and Thursday). If I have completed the Thieves Guild Questline, she'll follow Fathis Ules all the way into the Guildhall. So she obviously must be cozy with the Thieves Guild.

Suddenly I have the urge to write a Jensine/Fathis Ules fanfic.

I believe the Fenced Gold amount just checks how much money you've made from stolen goods, regardless of the affiliation of who you sold the item to.

And to be fair to Jensine, that package is bugged so that it does not work without the UOP. I would assume that her going into the Guild Hall would also be an oversight, as it didn't work in the first place.

To respond to the topic, the best way to handle stolen merchandise is just by joining the Guild and getting fences that way. Low gold is just the most annoying problem with Oblivion merchants, either way. Good thing most stolen goods aren't worth that much, then. But since you are still low leveled, make sure you invest in getting Mercantilism up through trainers or the like, so that you have the perks to increase gold for the late game.

So i finally did join the thieves guild and fences unlocked. But these fences are for the sole purpose of advancing further in the thieves guild when you sell a certain amount of stolen items to them.
So i'll really have to keep a check on what i sell to them so that i won't fall short, as I'm not a thief by class. Almost all the fences of the thieves guild which i looked up would buy items only for the players advancement.

"Almost all the fences of the thieves guild which i looked up would buy items only for the players advancement."

I don't understand what you are saying here. They buy what you offer them as long as you are in the guild. The game keeps track of the amount and tells you when you have reached a goal and qualify for a special job. You have to do the quest for the game to consider if you have enough fenced for the next one. The fences don't care what you do and you don't get punished for not doing a quest. They are fun/challenging quests if you try to do them without invisibility or chameleon.

There are only about five places you can rob that have anything of value or enough junk to add up to a couple of hundred. I hit most of them the same night I do the initiation and then sell $1000 worth of stolen items to Ongar in one shot to qualify for all of the quests. After each quest completion I get back-to-back message windows saying "you need to fence X more" and then "You have fenced X, go see Y."

No, you won't have to do it again.

Also, during the fencing quests, you don't have to sell to your newest fence. You can sell to Ongar throughout the whole questline, he just has less gold to trade with.

Ongar is always around and almost always "on duty". I have trouble with the other fences. The guy in Leyawiin almost never has his merchant symbol on. The one in Bravil has business hours, and I couldn't find the guy in Anvil the one time I needed him. I alway use the Honorblade and then turn it in for the Escuteon at level 25, so the top level fence is out too. It would be nice to use him as a regular merchant for the expensive daedric items, but by that point I have more money than I can spend.