When I was about 11 I traded my BMX with my uncle that was too small for me for larger bicycle without a brand. We both benefited from that as his younger daughter needed smaller bike and I needed bigger.
1 Like
A friend of mine had a great beach-house, and I’m a carpenter.
We used to trade time spent there for maintenance and repairs.
From a monetary perspective, he’d rent the place out for about $1,000 a week during the holiday periods and cover the cost of materials.
I’d go when the place was vacant, and there was seldom more work than I could do in about a 1/4 of the time I’d be there.
1 Like
Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part of either as a child or adult.
- When I was in boy scouts in the USA as a kid, I went to the National Jamboree and for fun, we traded our official region’s unique patches. If you were lucky, the supply of your patch was a bit low, it was beautifully stitched with a delightful design, and was worth more as one patch to whom you were trading. There patches from all over the world and it was a lot of fun to try and collect the more rare and beautiful patches. At times, people offer decent money for the patches, but most scouts kept to the honor of trading patch for patch. The emotions ran high as the one-week time limit of the jamboree was running out as the days went by making trading more frantic. I get this experience wasn’t in trade for another good, but I thought it was a fun experience and hopefully an interesting example.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
- Patch for patch, I thought it was fair as both parties agreed and again, you were quite lucky if your patch was beautiful and in low supply. You could often get 2 or 3 patches for your one nicer patch. Sometimes even more.
1 Like
My brother and our friends and I used to trade Pokemon on Gameboys when we were kids. We mostly just wanted to make them evolve. Sometimes we would have someone start a new game and just trade over the starter pokemon so we could have 2 or all 3 of them in our game. Good times!
1 Like
As a musician those transactions are daily business. Lately i played drums on a guys track and he offered to mix a song of mine in return. Since both activities would roughly cost the same if you had to pay for them in money, it´s a fair deal. Sometimes it´s more complicated than that, when there are less tangible hardly contollable factors like network effects or possible royalties involved.
1 Like
1. A Brief History of Money
Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
When I was younger I traded Pogs, Pokemon, and baseball cards. Looking back I only traded ones that I had multiples of so for me it was worth it because I usually got the card I needed to finish my collection.
1 Like
Commonly trade beer for labour, is always a pretty good deal either way.
1 Like
When I was 5 Ive trade the last soccer album sticker for a sandwich and a coke. We both were happy.
1 Like
Best thing I can think of is a childhood snack barter in the lunchroom. I never had the bartering clout to acquire the coveted pudding cup, but my little debbie snack cakes could sometimes fetch a high price, including fruit roll ups.
1 Like
I used to exchange food at school. A sandwich with chicken and vegetables in return for a wrap with beef. I thought it was a fair exchange because both of us would be satisfied with the outcome of the trade, as we were driven by our taste preferences on that particular day.
1 Like
The first thing that come to my mind is pokemon card. Each card had it’s own value and I remember I was good at trading in a way that I always had the best deal.
1 Like
Answer:
As a young kid I traded a hockey card for a winning chestnut. Back in the old days, we used to put chestnuts on a shoe lace and have chestnut fights, where the aim was to crack the other kids nut. A winning chestnut would accumulate wins and became a prized item. I don’t remember which hockey card I traded away but in hindsight it was not a fair trade. Hockey cards can become rare over time and have value to a larger group of people, where the winning chestnut only had meaning to a small community of kids (and of course was perishable, especially if you used it in a future chestnut battle and it got smashed).
1 Like
Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
I was 7, new to military housing in Bad Nauheim, Germany. We lived in 3 story housing, 2 apartments per level. I quickly discovered children my age and older went door to door in every barracks trading comic books. So many options for trading opportunities! Types of comics had different value, and so did the size of the comic books. We each would learn to quickly review each other’s stacks and barter/negotiate which comics we wanted, and what we would be willing to trade for them. I thought it was great. Good way to meet others, and to learn what was valuable, the bigger and varied the stack the better, and how to finalize the deal!
1 Like
Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
When I was a lot younger I had this mini scooter but I really wanted this BB gun my neighbor had. While I did realise the scooter was worth far more than the BB gun I honestly was young and dumb and really wanted the BB gun. So I traded it with my neighbor. Looking back it was not a fair trade as the scooter lasted far longer than the BB gun and had more uses.
1 Like
- we would trade old Console games we had completed for another
if you had a game everybody wanted you could trade for the best thing they could offer
but if you had a conker on a string , there would be no interest in in trading with that individual.
1 Like
I have traded many times in my childhood with barter. In Magic the Gathering i have performed very good trade but finally i have loose all my treasures in time losing interest in cards games. The best i think was when I trade for 3 old rare card an entire deck (60 cards) to join a tournament.
So many others barter trade in collectibles, telephonic card and ancient coin.
I remember one my last barter this year, with a jar of my super hot chutney with mango and fresh pepper handmaded. I trade this with a bag of black cabbage and other fresh vegetables from a farmer.
I think this was very fair exchange because i take fresh food directly from a farm givin a little portion of my job in the barter, i havent spent much times cooking and i have buyed many mangos and harvest so many pepper which I cant used all alone. Then we have started a partnership of constant trades.
1 Like
A classic system of barter as a child was trading snacks at the lunch table. For an example I would trade my juice boxes or Caprisun for fruit snack packets. At the time that seemed like a fair enough trade but if calculated by the actual monetary price my Caprisun was probably worth more than two small bags of gummies.
1 Like
Well my cousin just exchanged one of his cars with my Mom’s car it wasn’t a fair transaction because my cousin’s was two years newer and a better line of car and brand. But you know, it stays in the fam.
1 Like
Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why? - Made bottled cocktails and bartended for a friends ( who is a graphic designer ) wedding in exchange for the branding for beverage products. The barter was fair because both parties were happy with the transaction. The bottled cocktails were a success, orders were placed that day and the branding was great. The newly married couple was happy, the wedding attendees drank every single cocktail so they were happy and I was chuffed.
1 Like
It’s kinda boring but i don’t really remember any meaningful exchanges as a kid. Nowadays, barter typically occurs in the form of services with the wife. “I’ll vacuum the house if you clean the kitchen” type of thing. But i must say, these exchanges are TOTALLY worth it. Folding the clothes, for example, is a task i typically detest. So exchanging that for less onerous tasks is ideal. Luckily the wife feels the same, and therefore things operate smoothly. =D
1 Like