Finding and Using the Iron Ingot ID in Skyrim
The Iron Ingot is one of the most basic items in Skyrim, but getting its ID right can trip people up if you are just starting with console commands or mod editing. The Editor ID is IronIngot, and its FormID in the vanilla Skyrim master file (Skyrim.esm) is 000D5A1B. That is the hex value you need to reference it in scripts,Alchemy, smithing mods, or console commands. The leading zeros matter less in console usage, but they matter a lot if you are scripting something through TES5Edit or a CK plugin. I spent way too many hours debugging a custom alchemy mod because I kept using the stock item ID when I had actually created a new version of it in my own plugin. The moment I switched references to my modified ID, everything compiled. Here is the thing nobody tells you: when you duplicate an item in the Creation Kit and save it under a new record, the new FormID is not 000D5A1B anymore. It becomes something like 011A4C2E or whatever slot your plugin grabbed. If you are following tutorials that reference the vanilla ID, they will break once you mod the item yourself. The console command approach is simpler. Open the tilde key and type something like: player.additem 000D5A1B 100 to give yourself a hundred iron ingots. You can also use the shortened form without leading zeros: player.additem D5A1B 100. Both work. The game resolves them identically. I usually just type the short version because I am lazy and the console does not care.
When you are working in a mod plugin and need to reference the iron ingot in a script, use the reference editor ID: IronIngot. The Creation Kit resolves that automatically as long as Skyrim.esm is in your master list. If you are creating a standalone plugin without Skyrim.esm loaded properly, the reference falls back to a 00 hex ID and the script breaks at runtime. I hit that exact issue once while building a small trading mod. The ingots rendered as blank items in the merchant inventory, and I spent two hours before realizing the master file was missing from the plugin order. It loaded after Skyrim.esm instead of before it. There is a common misconception that the ID changes depending on which Skyrim version you are running. The FormID stays consistent between the Legendary Edition and Special Edition for the base item. The Special Edition did shift some internal memory addresses, but 000D5A1B remains valid across both. However, if you are targeting Skyrim SE or AE and your plugin uses a different master version, the ID still resolves correctly as long as you are referencing the original record and not an override. One practical edge case I ran into recently involved a quest that awarded iron ingots as part of a reward sequence. The quest used the wrong ID format and the items never appeared. The workaround was simple: I opened the quest in the CK, found the Object Reference under the rewards folder, and replaced the placeholder entry with a direct lookup of IronIngot from the game data. That forced a proper form ref binding instead of relying on a hardcoded string somewhere in the quest stage data. It took about five minutes to fix after I realized what was happening.
Another detail worth mentioning: the iron ingot has a base value of 2 gold and weighs 1.0. If you are doing math for a trading or economy overhaul mod, those numbers are baked into the base record and change only if you explicitly override them. Some players try to adjust prices through global variables and wonder why their shop mod pricing is still off. It is usually because they missed the base value field in the item record itself. For people looking to download a plugin or reference sheet with the ID already configured for their version of Skyrim, there are community documentation sites and the CK wiki that maintain current records. The official Creation Kit reference for the item can be pulled directly from Skyrim.esm by opening the item category under Objects > Ingredients in the world space browser. Iron ingots themselves are trivial to acquire. You smelt iron ore at a forge with the smithing perk or just buy them from any merchant. But the ID mechanics behind them are where most beginners lose track when they move past simple console commands into actual modding work.
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