We examine the trading and pricing of defaulted U.S. corporate bonds. Defaulted bonds are actively traded since the bonds’ natural holders change from buy-and-hold to specialized vulture investors. We document that intermediation after default shifts to dealers with prior expertise in the defaulted bond. These primary dealers locate higher-valuation counterparties in longer intermediation chains and absorb more order flow in their inventory than other dealers. The switch to trading with primary dealers raises recovery rates by 8%. Our results highlight the importance of dealers’ expertise in intermediating specific corporate bonds which stabilizes market functioning and lowers credit risk ex-ante.