Merchant

ACB Art Merchant Shop — An art merchant's shop in Renaissance Rome

A merchant is a person who buys and sells items and commodities.

Types

Art merchants: Art merchants sold treasure maps and paintings that, when hung in the Villa Auditore art gallery, increased Monteriggioni's value.^[1] In Rome, they also sold maps for flags and feathers.^[2]
Blacksmiths: Blacksmiths crafted and sold pieces of armor or weaponry. They also repaired broken armor, and sold various forms of ammunition; such as bullets,^[1] crossbow bolts,^[2] and bomb ingredients.^[3]
Doctors: Doctors could treat injuries for a small fee. They also sold medicine and poison vials.^[1]
Fast travel booths: Fast travel booths allowed for easy travel to different locations throughout Italy for a sum, and acted similarly to fast forwarding a memory in the Animus.^[1]
Tailors: Tailors sold pouch upgrades to increase the amount of ammunition that could be carried at one time. They also offered several different options for clothes dyeing.^[1] After Leonardo da Vinci created their designs, tailors also began selling parachutes.^[2]
Banks: Banks kept a record of restoration efforts, and both collected and distributed funds that resulted from renovations.^[2]
Book shops: Similarly to art merchants, book shops sold treasure maps, as well as a varied collection of books.^[3]
General stores: In the American colonies, general stores provided various kinds of items, including ranged and melee weapons, ammunition, maps, dyes, and hunting supplies.^[4]
Peddlers could be found riding carts around tracks, selling consumables and paying for hunting spoils.^[4]
Harbormasters: Harbormasters sold upgrades for ships.^[4] They also bought goods such as sugar and rum.^[5]
Printers: The men who produced pamphlets, books or wanted posters could be paid to produce false propaganda.^[4]

Trading

Ezio Auditore da Firenze was also able to sell various items that he collected to the merchants of Rome. Virtually any item that could be stolen or looted could be sold for a portion of its value.

Shops on Tiber Island also offered a selection of special items, which could be claimed in exchange for a number of rare items.^[2] Among these were:

Vatican treasure map - Art merchant
Seusenhofer armor pieces - Blacksmith
Captain's Sword - Blacksmith
Fast-acting poison - Doctor
Large pouch for crossbow bolts - Tailor

During the Golden Age of Piracy, the pirate captain and Assassin Edward Kenway commanded a fleet from his home and hideout on Great Inagua that traded with many cities accessible by the Atlantic Ocean.^[5]

Kanien'kehá:ka Assassin Ratonhnhaké:ton was able to sell various hunting spoils at any general store in the colonial cities and the Frontier for a profit.^[4]

Trivia

Merchant stalls in Altaïr Ibn-La'Ahad's time period served to be a handy escape option, as he could dive through them to avoid running through a crowd of citizens.
- In the PC version of Assassin's Creed, there was also a secondary mission called "Merchant Stand Destruction", in which Altaïr needed to destroy a set number of merchant stands within a time limit. The explanation for this was that the targeted merchants were selling products that were causing illnesses.
In the Xbox 360 version of Assassin's Creed, the "Gifted Escapist" achievement was unlocked for diving through twenty merchant stands.
Should Ezio walk under a merchant stall banner that indicated its type, the banner would move, even though he was too short for his head to touch it.