When I was a child we traded Littlest Pet Shop toy animals. It was a pretty fair trade as it was like items and usually one-for-one, but there was some bartering and haggling for the more unique critters and accessories. Since multiple girls all traded with each other there was always a fresh collection of items to chose from. Some paws were marked with initials or a specific color marker to differentiate whose was whose.
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Don’t remember mutch, but reading the comments really helps bringing up memories up to the surface. I used to collect Dragon Ball Z stickers and would trade my doubles for another’s friend double. We weren’t really aware about the rarity of what we were exchanging so in hindsight it wasn’t exactly fair when you would trade a more valuable sticker for less valuable one. It was a matter of I need it because I don’t have it, and that was that.
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I can’t recall being part of any barter transaction. I can imagine I have been trading some toys with my brothers but I don’t remember specific items nor the resulting emotions.
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My husband and I were at an estate sale talking with another shopper that we know. In the back of his truck he had a long antique/vintage wooden ruler that had a particular advertising on it that my husband liked… we had one of those vintage green & white metal & porcelain light shades that we had just purchased. My husband traded/bartered the wooden ruler for the light shade. My husband was happy but I was not as excited. I think the other guy got a better deal as far as value goes but in this case the value was in the eye of the beholder. If you were to sell the two items on Ebay the green shade was more valuable.
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I went on a hiking trip where we ate dried food. There was a vegetarian who went with us who traded his beef jerky for banana bars. He had a huge surplus of banana bars, and everybody else in the crew got an extra beef jerky occasionally. I thought the banana bars were a little bit gross, especially when eaten in large quantities, but if he didn’t mind, I guess it made everyone involved happier.
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I needed electrical work performed outside of my house, exterior. I had a friend who was a licensed electrician. I offered to build a computer for him in exchange for his work. We both agreed it was a fair exchange and were happy to do it.
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Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.
Used to exchange pokemon cards for food back in elementary.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
the two items were a pokemon card, considered to have value at such young ages and yes, it was a fair exchange since i got food that i really wanted from the food store and not the food my mother packed in the lunchbox lol.
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I remember I did a transaction younger that included a skateboard and rollerblade
I think it was fair because at some point my board was an old one and vice versa, it was old rollerblade at my frind’s eyes.
which made a perfect bartner transaction
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I have a lot of experience in barter deals. In 1996-1998 there was a deficit of fiat in Russia and we made hundreds of deals to float the business. I remember exchange of nickel to tubing production and further the latter to the energy certificate, which we sold with a discount.
I remember this time as very sweetie for business because if you were able to invest money in the beginning of the trading exchange than the final ROI was great due to accumulation of all margins along the way.
However for the government it was awful time. No one has paid taxes.
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When I was little, playing in a remote village in Nigeria, we exchanged value using barter. It could be a playing piece with another as long as the two parties desire each other’s piece or it could just be food exchange between two kids from different homes who would exchange a spoon of stewed rice from one kid with 2 spoons of tasty porridge beans from the other kid. We exchanged things like beautiful flower petals with tygons or broomsticks with some treads. Barter transaction has never been a fair exchange of value because it depended on negotiation power, age/seniority between the parties, strength/feebleness of each party, beauty/ugliness of each party (romantic transactions between opposite genders…lolz), legality of ownership of item, how strong the desire of one party is towards having the other party’s item (in which case demand is greater than supply and value of desired item goes up - i.e. exchange less of desired item with more of the demanding party’s item) etc. Sometimes you are even willing to exchange your precious item with a bully who returns the favor of sparing you a nice beating…y’all know what I’m talkin 'bout… 
. So overall Barter is not a fair exchange of value.
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In my high school years I recall painting a room in someone’s house in return for tickets to an AC/DC concert. I think it was a fair exchange; but, only because it was something both of us wanted and we perceived the what the other person had to off as of a certain value. That said, if I didn’t want to go to the concert I wouldn’t have done the work and if they didn’t need their room painted, they wouldn’t have wanted to trade the tickets for anything other than cash. I also recall getting professional golf lessons in return for renovating my instructors home. Totally worth it now that I can plan golf without the frustration I had when I started. I think he feels the same as his home and business required significant work to complete the projects and would have cost him money out of pocket if he wasn’t such a good teacher.
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When I was in high school I would trade chocolate and fizzy drinks for cigarettes. 1 chocolate bar or 1 bottle of drink got you 2 cigarettes. This was a fair exchange 10 cigarettes cost £2.50 to buy at the time. But they were 50p each in school. A 6 pack of drinks would cost £2.50-3 and sold at £1 each in school. The upside for me was that I was too young to buy cigarettes from a shop.
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A year ago:
Mary gave me Fruit in exchange for my tree pruning service. I Pruned some of her fruit trees over the course of a few weeks each day leaving with a sack of tropical fruits like Rollinia or Jackfruit.
It was very Fair. I was happy to receive fruit! And she was happy to get her tree ready to produce more abundance. I was also happy to exercise my skilled service and she was happy to give away her abundance!
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When I bought my first ounce of weed I thought I got ripped off. This was around the age of 15 or so which would put me in grade 7. I didn’t understand at the time that dealers needed to increase the price of the product due to the high risk associated. The government system opposed marijuana dealers and gave them jail time. This wasn’t until advancements in technology where we see in Canada marijuana is legalized because it had signs of health benefits. Now back then I was spending $20 for about 2g. Now the currency has debased the same 2g is worth only $10. This was clearly a poor decision, but was it fair? Well because of the risks involved of both possessing and consuming the product it would be considered a worthy product based on this reasoning. However, the marijuana at the time could be laced meaning it has negative health effects. Overall in my experience, this wouldn’t be a great transaction because it didn’t provide me with any value at the time. If I would say use it now then it would be worth more value to me because I have more purchasing power. (more money) There is also a lack of traceability of marijuana from its supplier to the dealer. It could’ve poisoned me. I think that the monetary policy with its debasing currency and its increasing inflation has a negative effect on this transaction, and so does lowering regulation make this transaction safer? Well, I could’ve been poisoned, but I wasn’t. My point is you can’t determine if a transaction before was a good investment unless it provides you with value. (Any thoughts? Im open to criticism)
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Yes, value is important, and I would for sure trade all my tobacco for a throwing axe cause it would be cool to just have one. Good work!
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Amazing a true transfer of value. Both participants left happy. Good trade.
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I used to own a quasi upscalish restaurant with some creds about town, so I had a product that was in demand amongst the in the know. I enjoyed collaborating with local artists to orchestrate collaborative art and art and music events. I frequently was seduced by artwork on display but as a poor restaurant owner (lot’s of glam but very little gold) I could rarely if ever afford the price tags for most of the work we showed (I did however have one artist who displayed hundreds of items and sold each for a dollar,)
As fortune would have it. Pun intended, The starving artist cliche was in reality, a reality, Thus I was able to trade my humble services in the form of delicious food and drinks into blown glass objects, graffiti skateboards, and pottery. For what I received and the fact that I still have most of what I traded for, I would have to say that I came out ahead on the transaction. Dining is an ephemeral experience after all. I have been told however, that I delivered a memorable dining experience, And memories are priceless,
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Probably the biggest one for me was marbles. As a child we payed marbles the bigger and prettier the marble the more worth we perceived it had.
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As a child we used to play with marbles and rubber bands. There were times I had more rubber bands than I needed and I exchanged it for the marbles of my friends.
In the primary school I used to give some of my native homemade foods to my classmate and he would give me some of his biscuits. We considered it simple sharing, but actually, it was barter.
In both cases, we considered the exchange “fair” as the degree of difficulty in obtaining them was more or less equal. In the case of the snacks, they were both provided for by our parents. In the case of the marbles, I was quite good at rubber bands contests and he was good at marbles. In short, we both felt good about our trade. It was win-win.
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When I was kid a bartered cards from collective albums for example WorldCup Soccer albums. I thinks is was fair because the transacted items were the quite the same (2 cards), but I was missing the card that the other person had. So i consider it was a fair transaction.
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