Food. Kids brought the best lunches to school and I was always hungry. Nobody picked on the kids that gave me food. I suppose they felt safe being my friend. I was a very help person in exchange for food. Nothing has changed.
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I don’t recall bartering much, but I’m sure I likely have. Mostly things like lunch items - trading an apple for a cookie, for example - or trading one CD or hockey card for another. These were likely fair exchanges because both parties received something they valued more than the item they traded away.
I think I never used a barter transaction…
I remember trading Yu-Gi-Oh! cards in the school
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From childhood, I remember very heated moments when trading pokemon cards. Due to the different value of the cards, we would come up with some really clever exchange rates. I remember trading an extra Charizard for 10 second-tier cards and a month of math homework.
I guess, considering the scarcity of that particular card, it was a fair exhange, I guess? -
One from more recently: I traded drum lessons for extra studio time to one of the studio owners in New York. I think this was a completely fair exchange, as we actually compared cost of the lessons with cost of the studio time.
I once wrote my friend’s History Paper in exchange for tickets to my first Miami Dolphins game… They lost.
When I was a kid at boy scout camp one year, they had a nightly barter gathering at the canteen. One night of the scoutmasters brought a bunch of surprise packs that had various things inside, including money. No one knew this at the time, but once word got out about these surprise envelops they became extremely valuable. However once opened, you could not longer trade them. I traded away several candy bars I had accumulated for one of these packs only to find a sticker inside (someone else had found 10 bucks inside). Definitely not a fair trade as a lost all my candy bars and who wants a sticker!
I have an aunt that ran a dog boarding place. I once bartered with her to let my dog stay there for a few days and I would do some office computer work for her. In retrospect I believe this was a fair trade as it usually would have cost a few hundred dollars to let the dog board there.
BTC standard - Lesson 1
It was very common at school to trade cards (football players, animated cartoon characters etc…) with your schoolmates. The usual trade was to swap one card for another but, when there was a specific card which was rare and difficult to find, then usually you had to give away a couple or even more cards just to get that one. THat was fair since scarcity makes prices raise.
Once, while I was in prison, I traded some shower time with a rather large man for two packs of cigarettes. I felt it was worth it at the time, but looking back now I wish that I had not done that.
As a child I had a pretty decent collection of Tazos (these little plastic round thingys you found inside crisps bags) And we traded those with friends, trying to get the rare ones for a ‘good price’.
Also, sticker albums, that was a thing. I remember a particularly good trade I made for a holographic sticker. Good times haha.
I swapped a games console for a dvd player which was a good barter as we both gained what we wanted, by bartered for something which was no longer needed!
I have a friend who would invite me over to his house for a beer or two. Once we started the second beer, he would disclose that he had a “project” he needed my help with (i.e. paint the house, tile the floor, etc)…not sure that I would consider this a fair exchange…mostly as it wasn’t disclosed to me up front before I accepted the beer.
Trading soccer cards (German kids are into soccer cards, not baseball cards) with a price discovery process, in which a card with a famous player on it would be worth several cards showing lesser players. I’d say it seemed fair at the time, though in hindsight it was a bit arbitrary.
hello all,
I recently traded a big fan and vents for a kids electric motorcycle and some fishing gear. as fas as I’m concerned it was a big come up even though the monetary value wasn’t equal, I was on the more expensive trade items side of the trade. the enjoyment from the motorcycle and fishing gear way outweighed the non existent use of the fan and vents.
Trading candy for Pokémon cards as a child. I believed the cards were more valuable to me because I could go and beat my friends in matches. While kids that valued short term reward, preferred the candy. I would say it was a fair trade because we even though we valued different things, we got what we wanted.
I only remember football player stickers that I then exchanged with other guys for stickers I did not have. Being of the same type that means it definitely was a fair deal. I can’t recall any trade of different objects…
This is a great question. When I was about 14 I had two basketball cards that I traded with another person for a bunch of other basketball cards. In this case I had a rare Michael Jordan rookie card and a Scotty Pippen Rookie card. At the time there was a young player who had come into the league and I bet on the idea that his cards value would go way up. I traded my two rare cards for about 22 Larry Johnson rookie cards during his second season in the NBA. At the time it looked like a very fair transaction as Michael Jordan had not become Michael Jordan yet and Scotty Pippen was just a guy who played basketball with Michael Jordan.
To make a long story short. Larry Johnson developed back problems and his career remained fairly avg when compared to Michael Jordan and Scotty Pippen. The two cards I traded went on to be worth a lot of money and the 22 cards I received remain fairly valueless to this day.
Pokemon cards vs Magic the gathering cards. It might seem like it is the same thing, but it is not. It would be like trading potatoes for tomatoes. It was difficult to reach a consensus because both parties had different opinions about the value of the card. It all ended with a partial trade.
Marbles. Gassey’s, Steelies, Cats eyes. I’m not sure how we all came up with a value for each, but somehow they all did. I remember when I found out that Steelies ( Ball bearings) were more then abundant, and realising they had no actual value…