I tend to do barter transactions with my husband when we order food / eat out. Lots of times there is something on his menu that I also really like, so I exchange some of my menu to get it. Usually I perceive it as a win for me, because I trade something I like less for something I like more (but I think he happily accepts his “loss” to make me happy ;-)).
2 Likes
I have already exchanged my intellectual capital for another one. We had the consensus that knowledge is something valuable and that the exchange was fair, since the currency of exchange was knowledge.
1 Like
This has actually come up many times for me as a luthier. Frequently, I’ll exchange guitar repair service for a six pack of beer. I don’t usually find the transaction by itself to be fair, the value of the work I preform far exceeds the value of the beer on offer. I’m viewing this as more of a favor to a friend or musician in need, it’s not a trade I would accept under normal circumstances.
2 Likes
I once traded about 20 silver rounds for a 1 carat diamond. Looking back I know it was way too much for what was ultimately a low quality jewel. It was a hasty decision and poorly thought out. The other guy definitely made out like a bandit.
1 Like
I remember trading a pokemon card when I was young. I traded a card for the first time and I felt ok with it at the time because I thought I had made a good trade… Shortly after the trade I opened a new pack of cards to find the card i had just received in the trade and was upset because now I had 2 of the same card and none of my original card. I never swapped a card again haha
1 Like
My first bartering experience as a child was with a bmx and skateboard shop.
I used to get Bmx parts at a discount and a t shirt and as many stickers as you want with the shops logo on it.
And in return I would go to shopping centers and various venues to do stunts as a team member for the shop, handing out stickers and drumming up business.
That shop owner was smart, free labour and still made money off me from buying stuff from the shop. Thought it cool to be able to have an " account " at the shop.
I ran the bill so big that I ended up getting a job at Mcdonalds to pay for the stuff I would buy “at a discount” !!
2 Likes
When I was a kid, sometimes my friends and I exchanged toys. I think at that time it was a fair exchange, because other friend had a toy that I wanted and he wanted my toy, which I didn’t really want.
1 Like
The barter transaction I remember as a kid was trading Pokémon cards for other toys, we as kids didn’t have any money so it was the only way to get stuff you wanted without asking your parents for money.
3 Likes
I remember as an 11 year old swapping/bartering World Cup 90 stickers of football players with my friends. It was a fair trade as all stickers were worth the same.
1 Like
I honestly do not recall ever being apart of a barter tx but for the sake of this learning exercise I will fabricate the following: When I was a young lad of 10 years of age I proposed a trade of my friends Depth Charge action figure from the TV show Beast Wars for my Optimus Prime action figure. Looking back I think it was a fair exchange because it was a 1 for 1 trade from the same series of action figures. They roughly had the same monetary value as well.
2 Likes
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 young I traded my xmen super nintendo game for my cousins megamanx game. I would say it was a pretty fair exchange because they were equal in value at the time, both super nintendo games. It’s easy to trade the same item… but different… ahem. Anyways MegamanX is way sicker anyways. I win.
2 Likes
I run a food delivery company and we needed artists to do some graphical content. We specificaly needed a logo, as we did not have the expertise to do it ourselves we asked to do the task a graphical designer, who made the logo for which in exchange we gave him a basked full of groceries.
From our point of view it was fair, it is difficult to estimate real price for such work as it can differ greatly.
2 Likes
Many years ago, as an adult, I traded an expensive pair of studio speakers, not being used at the moment, for a laptop computer installed with all the latest audio gadgets and a set of hard drives. Seemed like a great deal at the time as I wasn’t using the speakers, however many years later, the computer, hard drives and software were outdated, leading me to spend more in newer, updated equipment - which would be expected to a degree except I would not ever have needed to upgrade the speakers I traded - they would have held their value and quality longer that the computer and accessories.
1 Like
We used to trade Flippo’s when we where young. You had al kinds of Flippo’s, but for the rare ones there was always great demand for them. If you had a rare one, it would have cost you at leased 4 or 5 normal Flippo’s to make a trade. At the moment it we thought it was quit fair. Only releasing later that the rare ones where made of poor quality and the didn’s survive as long as the normal ones. That is, if you played with them and not only kept them in a piece of plastic.
2 Likes
When I was younger, I was very into video gaming.
My friends and I would gather and play games together, once we realized that we didn’t have enough money to individually own all the games we wanted, we would either trade games or gaming consoles for the ones our friends owned and vice versa. Sometimes this transaction would only be temporary, and sometimes it could be permanent depending on the wants and needs of one another.
2 Likes
In my pre-March 2020 life, I was a full time fine craft artisan, creating contemporary polymer clay jewelry. That community, and also my larger social environment in general, is somewhat to very much into trading. In the craft community, what makes it easy to trade is that it’s "dollar-based’, meaning we agree to trade our creations for the value we would sell it at. In other circumstances, with neighbours and friends, if I feel like what I gave doesn’t feel like it cost me anything, because it’s something I have a lot of ( eg. medicinal plants that I’m already harvesting for me), or that I have freely or naturally ( eg. I speak english and others don’t, so if I teach english to their children it doesn’t cost me anything), it’s pretty easy to get to a win-win agreement if they are also providing me something that has the same characteristics for them ( abundant or low cost).
2 Likes
Back in the day as a kid I would trade videos games and baseball cards with my friends for other videos games, baseball cards, or other items. Then as a teen I would trade vinyl records for other vinyl records with my buddies. Usually it was a fair trade because each side would usually get the item they wanted.
2 Likes
As a child exchanging packed lunches at school. Homemade sandwich for snacks or fruit for candy. I think it was fair since at the end all of us were happy for what we got.
2 Likes
The first thing that comes to my mind was trading a couple of trading cards for some food i wanted to really eat.
The value of the card could actually exeed the traditional value of the food but to me my desire to get the food at the very moment justified the overpricing.
Was it fair? I guess you could argue it was a case of demand and supply.
2 Likes
Back in Primary School, each students were tasked to do chores such as sweeping the classroom, dusting the windows or throwing out the rubbish at the end of the day. Each student will be tasked to perform these chores once or twice a week depending on the number of students in the class.
A friend paid a certain amount of cash requesting me to cover his chore for the week and it was fair exchanging my time for his money.
1 Like