What items are worth more when brought/sold to a specific NPC(s), rather than to a regular merchant?
(Inspired by the 'What items should be saved for turn-ins?' question for Fallout: New Vegas.)
In Oblivion, what items should be saved for turn-ins? For example, Roland Jenseric of The Order of the Virtuous Blood will pay 250 gold for Vampire Dust which is only 50 gold at 100% value when sold to a merchant (merchants on average, at lower mercantile levels, will buy at only around 50% of the value of an item). This makes it more worth it to sell Vampire Dust to Roland Jenseric, rather than to a regular merchant.
Solution 1:
(Made community wiki so others can add)
| Item | NPC | Regular value (gold) | Reward when sold or brought to NPC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ayleid statues | Umbacano | 250 | 500 gold per statue; 5,000 extra gold when the tenth statue is delivered |
| Black Bows | Count Marius Caro | 70 | 100 gold |
| Nirnroots | Sinderion | 0 | One bottle of Elixir of Exploration per set of Nirnroot for the first 100 Nirnroots; 250 gold per batch of 10 Nirnroots afterward (Note that at this point, you may get better value for Nirnroots if you're a master alchemist and create potions with it instead.) |
| Shadowbanish Wine | Nerussa | 55 | 1,000 gold for the first 6 bottles, 100 gold for each additional bottle |
| Vampire Dust | Roland Jenseric | 50 | 250 gold |
One-time quest items such as Ectoplasm are not included in the above table.