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I understand that some soul gems don't stack because of the size of the soul. You can't have a grand soul gem (petty) combine with a grand soul gem (grand). But sometimes my inventory has identical soul gems (with identical souls) that refuse to stack.

For example, my inventory looks like this:

Petty Soul Gem (Petty)
Petty Soul Gem (Petty) (13)

Now if I drop the 13 one, they actually drop as one soul gem, not 13 littering the floor. It's like arrows in a quiver.

My Stones of Barenziah do this too.

Can anyone tell me how to stack these into one lump?


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I appreciate everyones comments and they do make sense, but the only thing bothering me, (and this may be a spoiler) how come some of my Stones of Barenzia stack, and some don't? Are some actually worth more than others? –  Bryan Jan 13 '12 at 19:25
For the stones, it's a known bug. As soon as you show one to "Someone at riften" they stop stacking... Annoying but nothing you can do for now. –  LudoMC Jan 13 '12 at 20:10
I have proposed an edit. Partially because I think people are misenterpreting the question, partially because my eyes were bleeding. =) Hopefully it gets approved, as I'm curious about this too. –  Bruce Connor Jan 15 '12 at 3:20
Thank you! Sorry if that was confusing, but that us exactly how it is. I also noticed today that if I drop ingredients in bulk it will drop as one item. I really appreciate the editing. Do you do that by adding html tags or do I have to be a higher rank as a member to do that? –  Bryan Jan 15 '12 at 3:54
@Bryan To do that brownish area, just start each line with 4 blank spaces. To get italics, you can use html tags or sorround the text with *. When you are writting a question there's a link to a help page with all this stuff. ;-) –  Bruce Connor Jan 15 '12 at 7:05
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6 Answers

You can't.

They have different values for selling, so they cannot be combined.

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How is that dictated? By the soul captured? –  Bryan Jan 13 '12 at 6:59
I've noticed this too - it's a bit annoying considering it'll happily stack stolen and non-stolen items, meaning I can't tell if my stack of 50 Potions of Making Money By Selling will end up being 1 Potion of Making Money By Selling and 49 Potions of Oh You Stole These Ones, Too Bad –  Alex Jan 13 '12 at 10:37
@DavidB Do you know what causes identical soul gems to have different values? –  Bruce Connor Jan 15 '12 at 3:21
@BruceConnor I don't really know. I think the ones that are pre-generated with souls on the vendor are identical and usually make up the biggest stack. –  David B Jan 15 '12 at 22:11
@ David B That's a problem, because I buy a majority of mine empty. –  Bryan Jan 19 '12 at 0:12
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As already said they are different items type and cannot be combined in one lump. But if you play Skyrim on PC and you are not afraid of installing mods, there is an excellent mod called SkyUI that totally reworks how inventory is displayed and add useful features like dynamic search and so on.

Even if different soul gems cannot be combined together the result you will obtain with this mod should satisfy you enough to forgot about that problem.

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how does that UI work with an XBox 360 controller? Do you basically need a mouse to interact with it effectively, or did they consider PC gamers using a controller as well? –  Andy_Vulhop Jan 13 '12 at 20:42
Why on earth would you use a console pad on PC for this type of game, given the vastly superior option of mouse and keyboard? Unless you're lying on a couch I suppose. –  Alan B Jan 19 '12 at 9:20
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You can NOT combine this into one lump as you desire.

This is because each soul has a different strength.

The ones that are stacked likely have identical souls in them, making them identical.

Whereas the rest, even though they fall in the same category, (petty) have different strengths.

The soul strength and soul gem used, cause different categories.

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A petty soul gem is the lowest. There are no different versions of petty soul gems. They all have the same strength no matter what. –  Bryan Jan 19 '12 at 0:15
they all have the same amount of poewr when used, but underlying, the souls in them still differ in strength. The other answer points this out by the value of the soul gem. –  Doomsknight Jan 19 '12 at 11:23
Not true, Doomsknight, if you trade them with your companion, and take them back, all the souls you caught yourself will stack (per gem size/soul strength combo). Their price remains that of an empty soul gem of the same size, which prevents them from stacking with purchased soul stones. There is no difference between different souls of the same grade. –  Theodore Murdock May 6 '12 at 13:20
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Soul gems do stack

Soul gems that you fill yourself will end up in individual stacks of one in your inventory, but they can be combined into a single stack by trading them to your companion and then taking them back. All soul gems you fill have the same resale value: that of an unfilled soul gem of the same grade.

You can't stack soul gems that you fill yourself with soul gems that are purchased pre-filled, because pre-filled soul gems have a higher resale value, perhaps because they've been sealed to prevent the soul from escaping when the soul gem is dropped on the ground.

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I believe I've also noticed that grand soul gems you fill with grand souls yourself actually do stack properly with vendor soul gems, unlike the other grades, hopefully they'll patch them to all act like that in the future. I've only caught a small number, however, and only from mammoths, so I'm not 100% certain that they always stack nicely. –  Theodore Murdock Jan 24 '12 at 5:02
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Even if it has the same soul, it can't be put in stacks because of value.

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Drop the smallest stack and pick it up one at a time. It'll merge them into a single stack.

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If it isn't stacked to begin with, this won't stack it. –  Flater Jan 24 '12 at 8:43
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