If you can afford 2,000 gold pieces for a sword you can afford 15 gp to have the apprentice ID the thing.
There's a lot of room for variation here! Maybe they are using Spellcraft and Detect Magic each time. Maybe they're using Appraise to identify the item itself, which they know from legend to be magical. Maybe they're being conned and the PC has good Bluff.
We have played this situation so many times with a magic shop that we gloss it over. We collect treasure and we go to a town and we sell it. Unless there is something specific that needs to happen 'plot-wise', you can do other things with your time.
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A 1st level Wizard is, pretty much definitionally, able to manage a +16 or so on identifying items with Identify. As others mention, this is 15 gp and by the Settlement rules, 1 in 20 people or so can cast 1st level spells...so even assuming only 1/5 of those are Wizards there's at least on Wizard who can do this in any town of 100 people or more.
This is something shopkeepers hire done or do themselves (if they're a spellcaster, and many magic item brokers are) whenever they buy a magic item, and is assumed as part of the prices, at least in my games. Pretty easy to justify, really.
I run a homebrew world, and it's fairly low-magic. At least there are no "ye olde magic shoppes" to be found, but there are merchants who will deal in magic items. If they aren't casters capable of fully scanning an item, they'll hire one - and it's wise for the PCs to do the same, as these transactions are entirely unregulated. Usually there are a lot of sense motive rolls involved, sometimes diplomacy or intimidate factors in, too.
My players seem to like it this way. It can be a hassle, yes, but it creates a little tension between adventures, and gets them even more excited about pulling off a deal that either nets them some money or a new item they can't wait to put to good use. It also rewards characters with the associated spells and skills to make these deals go down, as well as making item creation feats a little more attractive.
In my game magic items only tend to be sold through rich merchants or various guilds most of which have either a mage on hand or a wand to aid in identifying magic items .
They also offer this service at a fee of course
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[pawnstars] I've got a buddy who's an expert in weird enchantments, let me call him down to the shop and take a look at it, do you mind waiting? Yeah no... thats full market price for that item, that's what I get for it. I've got to pay overhead, security, staff, keep the everburning torches on...[/pawnstars]
I gloss over it because it doesn't add fun to the overall game and isn't immersion breaking enough for me to care.
However...
The Temple of Abadar in most towns ensures that all merchandise and transactions are handled fairly, via certification and surprise inspections.
I do really like this idea. Have a temple of Abadar situated near merchant districts in larger towns. Their have at least a few people dedicated to writing short contracts about the good(s) being provided, their abilities and the agreed upon cost with a copy for the buyer, seller, and temple. All services provided for a small fee, also comes with magical identification from the temple. For a paltry 30gp per item (and using boiler plate legal documents) the Church of Abadar can make big bucks for those that care to get their items certified before purchase.
I do the gloss over it thing unless selling/buying the item relates to the story...and then it turns into d20 Pawn Stars. Speaking of which...I need to stat up Chumlee...
In my experience with different DMs, most shops that deal in magic items are owned and operated by mages.
The Temple of Abadar in most towns ensures that all merchandise and transactions are handled fairly, via certification and surprise inspections.
That's basically how I run things. Selling somebody a magic item that doesn't work right or that's cursed or something is not only fraud, it's negligent. If somebody's magic item stops working (or never works) in an emergency, they could die.
I'd also like to think that in very lawful societies, not only would the sellers of certain magical items be vetted, but the buyers might as well. A crook with a magical weapon is much more likely to kill one or two town guards trying to apprehend him or her than one without one, and many magic spells can be used for criminal or violent ends.
I think this has been mentioned, but part of it, in our games, is the presumed reason you can't sell magic items for more than half your price - some of that price goes into identification, clarity, and research fees.
Now that we're talking about it, I'd say the Church of Abadar thing is a great idea... as is the Church of Nethys, who, seeing magic as sacred, as a general rule are extremely upset about it when people lie about it, and cause them to fear magic for the wrong reasons.
Beyond that, we've all played enough that it's mostly just accepted - play-ability instead of deep simulation, as others have mentioned.
Humorously enough, I wasn't clear, I think, when I used the word, "clarity".
By that, I mean that histories (if any are necessary), requirements, nuances, origins (if available), and traits, as well as anything else that a potential salesperson could come up with, are all researched and learned by the holder of the item. Most of these are not kept beyond a basic, straight-forward description, by the seller - they don't care, unless something is important for the customer to know. But it's got to be done, or else they could be doing something, like, say, unleashing an unbreakable curse on themselves and their whole family line, or something.
Of course, that does lend itself to great story fodder, if you ever want to use it.
"Sure, Crazy Duck, down in Southerntania, he gives you the best possible prices for buyin' stuff, but he ain't give no guarantees. He never checks 'is goods, see, and, well, I hear-tell that he's got a few... uh, "drawbacks", if you know what I mean... after handling a few "interestin'" items. I don't know if it's catchin'. But you won't find none cheaper!"
or
"Well, yeah, he'll give you a good price for selling it to him, but he's not gonna stay in business very long - he sells at full price, but won't vet his stuff! I hear the churches of Abadar and Nethys are about to 'do something permanent' about the stuff that flows through his store. But I also here something more interesting... I hear the reason he buys so recklessly is that he's looking for something. Something specific - something serious. But no one knows what. It's possible even he doesn't, which is why he's not picky! You see, there's this legend..."
And so on.
Deckard Cain.
The material component for the identification spell is a pearl dissolved in wine (thus the cost).This is not correct in Pathfinder. By the rules you should be charging them less. Like, 20 GP at most.
I'm pretty sure he wasn't serious By the time he got to drunk merchants.
In answer to the main topic my group completely glosses it over there's no need to slow game play down.
The profit margines for merchants on this stuff is so high there is no nees to quible over identification costs etc.
Though this isn't remotely difdicult for pc in the first place.
Not really. The items are too high-category, and the people they'd be ripping off are too personally powerful and/or well connected. It would literally be the death of them in all likelihood.
Every once in a rare while? Sure. Someone would try it. But the vast majority have too much sense and too much at stake/to lose if they did so.
Sometimes being told the sword is magical is enough to make the buyer believe it is. Especially if they never have to face anything that is immune to non-magical weapons.
I can imagine the knight with his "magic sword" beating everyone in tournaments and assuming it's the sword when it's his own ability all along - or perhaps just a really well-balanced sword.
Obviously it also depends on how accessible magic is in your campaign world. If there's a dozen wizards in every village that can identify magic items, that's going to produce an entirely different effect on magic item trade to the world where there's only one or two in each major city.
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Wouldn't merchants that lie about the items they're selling to make a quick buck go out of business right quick?
Ha ha! I lied, thats not a magic... GERK...
No. Still good steel though.
Ripping off people who earn the nickname murderhobos is probably a fast track to a darwin award.