I discovered this the first day I played Skyrim and I have not seen it mentioned anywhere else.

Tired of an inventory full of stolen things and no one to fence to? Tires of your Companions inventory being full of good that end up being stolen and you can't sell them?

There is a barrel in Dragonreach where if you put stolen goods in and your companion takes them out, the stolen tag is removed from the items. I don't know why this is the case. most times if you put items in a container and ask your companion to empty the container, all the items end up tagged as stolen. For some reason this one always works.

When you enter Dragonsreach, go up the stairs and take a left into the kitchen area, go down the stairs into the servants quarters. Take a left at the bottom of the stairs and it is on the left in the corner with a wide bowl on top of it.

Again, just take any items you or your companion has that is tagged stolen, put it in the barrel, then ask your companion to take all items. When you take the items back from your companion, they will no longer be stolen.

I do not know how many any of the other containers in the area or other places in the game this works in. This was actually the first place in the game I tried to give my companion items in and I discovered that any other barrel or container I tried, except for the ones in my house came up as stolen.

Let me know if you know of other places like this or if there is something I am missing. Thanks!

Could it be a bug where having the follower remove items from a container toggles the stolen flag? IOW, you put your stuff in a barrel, and when Lydia removes it it's stolen, but if you put stolen items in a barrel and Lydia removes them, they're yours again. I'll have to test this. I do know that pickpocketing a bandit marks items as stolen for me, but killing and looting him doesn't.

It doesn't seem to work with other barrels. You put stuff in that isn't stolen and as far as I can tell, if it is over a certain dollar value, when your companion picks it up, it will register as stolen.

The only exceptions to this are the chests you own, (like in your houses) or THIS barrel that seems to have the opposite effect of other barrels and takes the stolen status off of the items.

There is nothing more annoying than taking items from your companion to sell, then not being able to sell them because the items are tagged as stolen and now you are weighed down and have to slowly walk to find a container to put them in so that your companion will take them back. Most companions will not pick an item marked as stolen off of the ground.

This is a good way to clean your inventory when you want to sell things. I will from time to time, go to the barrel, take all my companions Items they are carrying and put everything tagged as stolen and shove it in the barrel to have them take it. Then I can sell whatever to the vendors and not worry about it.

BTW this is on XBOX, I don't know of it is different on the PC version

Thank you for the info about this barrel! I started a thread a couple of days ago about items being marked as stolen after your follower takes them. This is good to know. I am going to try it out when I start my game. Thanks again! P.S.- I am also on Xbox.

I have tried other barrels in random places lately, and this is the only one I have found that acts this way.

Is there a Shadowmark anywhere near the barrel?

I have not looked for a shadowmark, but I did try this barrel and it does work! Thank you so much for posting this, Edgewriter!!

Just curious, did you try this on Xbox, PC, or PS3?

Interesting! [Am I the only player of this game who NEVER has any stolen items?....]

Serethil, you are such a little Miss Goody-Two shoes. Even Rupert, my doughty, upright Nord warrior, a man so honest he can't even bring himself to use sneak and thinks attacking Draugr Deathloeds from behind just isn't playing fair, has one stolen item on his stats sheet (God knows what it was, mind and I am similarly confused by the one trespass, 14 assaults and three murders he as apparently committed).

Well, I always have some trespasses and assaults - so not so goody-goody. But no, I never have any stolen items.... *shrug* It's just not something I DO.... sorry?

I actually have a lot of stolen Items that I have no idea how they became stolen. I just go to sell them and realize that I cant. (probably because I use my companion as a pack mule.)

This barrel has become the way I rectify that without having to jump from fence to fence.

I play on Xbox

This is good to know. I collect a lot of stuff and some items (like books) you can only get flagged as stolen and it always bothers me. Might try this to remove the tag.