I understand that any items that are 'stolen' are removed from you if you have a bounty on your head and you get caught and choose to either serve time or pay the bounty.

This has caused me a HUGE dilemma as I have gone to the effort of 'stealing' the blade of woe from Astrid in the dark brotherhood and then I obtained a second blade of woe from completing the quest line and killing her after she double crossed us...

After killing the 'emperor' in solitude I had a 1500 bounty placed on my head.. which is unavoidable in the game mechanics... so even without killing any guards and running away from the scene of the crime I still have the bounty....

So I have come back to solitude later on a different quest line (3 hours later) I get pinged as soon as the screen loads and I serve my time and.. voila... lose my 'stolen' blade.

I have even gone to the extent of giving the blade to my companion, telling him to go home, getting caught, serving time, going back to companion to find the item has gone from his inventory also...

So my Question : IS there anyway I can get around not losing my stolen items when I visit solitude again ? Bribing guard (with perk) or something similar ? I REALLY want to keep the 2nd blade as it is unique and took me allot of work to get it

If you go into the jail, you can find an evidence chest with all of your stolen gear in it so you can steal it back. Alternatively you can go to your house and store all of your stolen booty before turning yourself in also.

Or still, you could reverse pickpocket the blade into a bandit's inventory and then kill him, loot the body and it shouldn't count as stolen that way. I also hear you can sell your stolen goods to a thieves guild fence and then buy them back to remove the stolen tag. Haven't tried that one but it sounds legit.

Bribing should work.
Also, previous TES games put all confiscated items in an evidence chest in the nearest jail. Dunno if it's the same in Skyrim, but try to search around for that

Appreciate the fast response guys

I will try all of the above and see how I go .... I'm only going to lose 3 hours of play time from the last saved game that I have which is no biggy I just want to dual wield the blades again

The thieves guild fence does work. I haven't tried the pick-pocket thing....

only selling and re-buying from a fence works.

Unless it's a quest item, it can't be manually removed.
If you're able to, drop it in front of a follower. Once they pick it up, the flag should be lifted.

This 'is' technically a quest Item... as you do receive it within the dark brotherhood quest line.

However as I mentioned i stole it upon entering the dark brotherhood sanctum the first time I entered and have used it for the whole quest line and then received a second one on killing astrid when she looks like some over cooked KFC

excuse my ignorance or lack of education in this area.. what is this fence you mention ?

If you're working within the Thieves Guild, you'll have access. Just check them out.

A fence is someone who will buy and sell stolen goods. If you join the thieves guild you get access to a fence right away and more later as you do quests for certain npcs. As for reverse-pickpocketing a bandit, that is a brilliant idea and is much better, i.e. "free" than selling and buying back your stuff from a fence.

The best way to keep stolen goods is to fence them, usually high speechcraft with the needed perks are great for this.

If you can not use any merchant though, join the thieves guild.

I didnt know you could get 2 if you stole one then get from the questline ima do this !

I know ! you can also steal an ebony dagger from Cicero which partners the blade of woe nicely until you get the second one

I have pretty much done only the dark brotherhood quest line since I started my character and having the blade of woe and the ebony dagger at lvl 10+ makes life a little easier that's for sure

Don't you need the pick pocket perk to see it though?

Yes you do need lvl 70 pick pocket and the perk to allow you to steal equipped weapons

UPDATE - Selling the stolen Blade of woe to the fence in the thieves guild DOES NOT remove the stolen status

Reverse pick pocketing of the Blade of Woe to a bandit and then killing the bandit and looting DOES NOT work also

There is only one way to remove the stolen tag from a unique item. Put the item back on the person or persons corpse and loot it legitimately. So for the blade of Woe once you kill Astrid, put the stolen blade back on her corpse close the inventory and re-open it.

All stolen items will lose their stolen flags when returned to their owners corpse and taken again, now seemingly legitimately. All non-unique items can have their flags cleared by selling it to a fence and buying it again.

I spent a lot of time trying to remove the flag from the same item and this was the only way I could remove it from the Blade of Woe.

The above method doe not work on PS3.

I just loaded a save game from the poisoning of the 'fake emperor' ran to the sanctuary went and found astrid, planted the stolen blade back onto her, killed her with the [optional quest] blade of woe sitting on the ground next to her, looted the old stolen blade ....

Blade IS STILL flagged as stolen

The only way it seems I can get around this is to store the blade in my house in whiterun and then go to the area which has my bounty and server time a pain but atleast I get to keep both Blades of Woe

thank you all for your input into this topic is has been greatly appreciated

Happy Holidays !