As a child I was exchanging toys and little cars with my cousin, nothing expensive but with a lot of value in my eyes back then. Later on as a teenager computer games were a medium of exchange in our group of friends, no money involved because we were pirating Games and exchanging between each other. Today I try just to give and the universe will reword me some day. 
Looking back I perceive them as good decent trades.
As a teenager I bartered for movie tickets in exchange for yard work - yes it was more a goods and service exchange but I did see the original Star Wars seven times. So fair?..a very firm Yes.
when i was younger i would trade match attacks. if i had two of the same card i would trade one for a different player. it was a fair exchange because i got a different card and so did the other person.
I remember trading stamps from my stamp collection. It was always a bit of challenge to get a free trade going but somehow after a bit of bartering (adding or removing less valuable stamps for expensive ones) I did tend to get the stamps I was looking for
I remember trading stamps from my stamp collection. It was always a bit of a challenge to get fair trade goin but somehow after a bit of bartering I did tend to get the stamps I was looking for.
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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?
This my story will make a lot of people especially the tourists and travelers thinks 10X times before they try to visit or live in a village in Cameroon, West Africa by the equator. The are two seasons, raining and dry season. Dry season last for eight months, something entire year without no rain.
During dry season everything and everyone is all about surviving including the animals. Your surviving instance comes first because everything is dry, trees and plants are dead, you can barely find food to eat unless if you have a farm and stored it someway safe or in the city, and we use only two things to cook on that’s rocks and woods. People in the village don’t use electricity or have gas like those in the city. We use all natural resources. You need rocks to put the pot on it and you need woods to start a fire to cook your food. During dry season it’s hard to find good woods that can last for long to cook a big pot of food. In the village people don’t cook for themselves individually, people cook for the entire village. That’s why the is an old saying “It takes a village to raise a child”. Sometimes you may also hear it as “It takes a village to raise a village”. It’s true because when you are surviving, you are surviving with everyone in the village. Not just for yourself because no one person can survive by themself and no one person have all the resources they need to survive.
“During dry season, I break about 50 trees just to get good woods. I exchange the woods that I break down from the trees for foods to eat to survive. It was more than a fair trade because I need foods to survive and the person I exchange the woods with was a former she was 70 years old woman. She can’t break a tree down to get the woods to cook her foods so she exchange some of her foods with the young boys like me who have the energy to break down a tree and get woods in exchange for her foods”.
Both things we exchange was all natural resources. Woods and foods are natural resources just like commodity. Is one thing to have foods, but the foods aren’t cook. You need good woods to start a fire that can cook for the entire village or last long to cook the amount of foods you have. When surviving the supply and demand for all natural resource will alway increase and was more than the temperature of the weather 130°F degree at that time. When surviving people make sacrifices they give up what they like sometimes a car for what they need in exchange to survive like food, water, shelter, woods, and rocks. We all need shelter a place to survive. We all need food and water to survive. We all need woods to start a fire to cook the foods and rocks to put the pot on it to cook the food under the fire from the woods.
I traded WWF wrestling cards as a kid. was not a real fan of wrestling but I enjoyed it more than football which was the other dominant currency at the time.
I never completed my books…so I was probably not getting the best exchanges!
I never really cared about it, was more to just fit in so I guess it was a fair kept you in the loop with your friends and gave you something to share and enjoy together.
Yu Gi Oh and Pokemon cards, Panini football stickers, and Tazos on Frito Lays. Every single barter was me changing multiple cards or tazos for rare ones. Or if I already had rare ones I would change them for multiple ones I did have. I thought I never did any bartering ever but I was actually laughing when I remembered all of this.
I definitely got scammed but most of the trades were fair. Unless I got a cheap ass Beyblade that was overused and broke the same day…
Pokemon card, and lost it.
when i was in my early 20s i worked for a snowboard shop and had a surplus of gear. i used to trade items such as goggles, hats, bindings and even boards to the guy that worked in the local music shop for concert tickets, music equipment ETC… he loved the out doors and I love music so we struck a deal to work with each other so we could both benefit even though we made little in dollars
I recall as a child swapping Panini football stickers and each year certain stickers were harder to obtain. When news spread that someone had one of the coveted football team badges, I was in there quick and ended up swapping 10 of my stickers just to get it. At the time it was a mixture of emotions although I wasn’t happy having to give up 10 of my stickers, while the other kid was obviously delighted, but the desire to have this one rare badge was overwhelming as I knew it was one of the stickers I needed to complete my football book. The thought that I could buy another 100 stickers and still not get the one I wanted was the driving force behind my decision to barter 10 cards and on reflection it was a fair exchange, despite opening a new packet of stickers a month later and finding the same badge!
A barter transaction of note for me as a youngster was mowing lawns…huge ones. Initially, I did it for free just to build up a rapport and then when I’d get asked how much it would cost, I just told them to pay me whatever they thought was fair after I was done.
As a 14-year old, I was awash in business after a month of freebies… and pocketing a tidy profit after paying for the gas to power the old push-mower I lugged up and down the two miles of road next to my home.
I made many as teen to a young adult. One example would be an old school NFT otherwise known as a comic book. What learned about barter transactions is that it’s all about “value perception”. Its a “dance” that’s contingent on the balance between how much I want the item that the other person owns and I’m will to trade for it VS how much the other person wants to trade that Item and what they are will to trade it for in return. In my case, I wanted the first and original series of “Alien VS Predator” from Dark Horse Comics. I had an “X-Force” #1 original. The X-Force #1 was more valuable that the entire series that I wanted (at the time-early 90’s) monetarily, but not to me as a collector. Based on the priority of the person I was bartering with, the transaction was successfully completed.
I have worked at a facility near the Burning Man event in Nevada and the only means of exchange within the event itself is the barter system. No money is exchanged. One person might have a bag of weed while another has some bottled water. Both could be in high demand at that moment so for them it’s probably fair. Personally, as a kid I lived and worked on a farm. I picked up eggs, fed the cows, pigs, and chickens and worked in the garden digging, planting, and reaping and I was repaid by my grandmother with pancakes or waffles, eggs, and bacon on Saturdays. We ate the vegetables that we grew ourselves. I was rewarded with a healthy life. I guess that was fair.
I bartered playing monopoly about 7 years ago. I was trying to buy another players house. I asked if she would take 1,000 for it and she said no. I immediately asked “what would you take for it?” I eventually paid $2500 for it, my $1,000 offer was low and I did that intentionally. I needed it to have a third house on that particular square. Its all a hypothetical scenario since monopoly is just a game but thats the last barter experience I remember.
When I was in grade school, I traded my N64 game copy of Diddy King Racing for Super Smash Bros. for the N64. It was a fair trade because both games are Nintendo 64 hits.
I didn’t do much bartering as a child, the only thing I can think about that was similar to bartering was exchanging clothes with my sisters or friends. Most times, it was a successful exchange, and then when I got bored of the item, and go off and barter for another swap. I started working in the fields at a young age, picking peas or potatoes, so would get paid a small amount of money which put me in a good position to buy clothes and then exchange them.
My sister was older than me so she could afford to buy fizzy pop, a rare thing in our home. If I wanted some, I had to do her a favor like run to the shop or wash her hair. I think she always got the better deal so I used to help myself now and again, and when she realized I was doing this and filled it with some nasty tasting liquid that looked the same, and when I helped myself got a mouth full of yuck and she laughed her head off, siblings eh?
I traded a stack of common and uncommon pokemon cards for a holographic garados card as a child. It was absolutely unfair as i knew the value of both items and i used popularity instead of value to trick the person I was trading with. Not something i am proud of, but i think a good example for this activity.
I remember trading Panini football stickers for the Italian 90 world cup. Certain players stickers were common while other were rarer and some extremely rare.
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Describe a barter transaction that you’ve been a part either as a child or adult.
This exchange of ‘goods’ got deeply engraved into my mind as later in life I realised how immoral and sad the deal was.
I was about 5 years old and I sold my dog to my neighbour for a handful of sweets and chewing gums 
I got coaxed into this amazing business by my dad, who was not a big fan of dogs. I did lots of other bartered transactions, but this one was a highlight of them all.
List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?
The dog bartered for chewing gums definitely wasn’t a fair deal.