Merchants: Hidden items

[Xenephex]

In the original game, merchants did not display all of their inventory, but kept some of it hidden. If you bought out all of one item, then another item in their inventory would appear. This allowed for the art of 'merchant mining' (looking for those hidden items by buying out visible inventory), which a fair number of people practiced and enjoyed.

I do not recall exactly how many items merchants displayed originally, nor do I recall exactly how many items they could keep hidden (it was not unlimited). I could probably find out if there is any willingness to resurrect this mechanic. There were guides for merchant mining at one time, that I believe would detail some of this info.

I believe that the merchant would display the items most recently sold to him; I am fairly sure of that because one technique was to sell one of a desired item to a merchant who had none of that item displayed. If it then appeared in his inventory, then he did not have any more of that item. If it did not appear, then he did have more and the just sold item had been added to the stack in his hidden inventory and thus could be mined.