Activity Lesson 1

I recently traded some of my digital design skills in exchange for a few weeks of coaching from the guy I was working with. No financial transaction. Just a straight up exchange of services. I believe it was a good trade off for both of us and helpful in both respects. I can’t think of things I did as a kid, but I’m sure there was some Pokemon cards involved or something like that :grin:

I swapped some toys for my friends toys - i have ‘he man’ and he had ‘trasnformers’. His brother told him a ripped him off by about 10% which was true, but i was sad my scheme had been found out. So I didn’t want to swap back, we argued and got conflicting advice from my parents. In the end i swapped back and the boy did not want to be my friend any more.

The price was hard to quantify but to be fair they were correct. The value was good but for it being seen to be unfair, so it ended up being a cancelled transaction, and a lost friend - not good.

I had recently had a barter transaction in the recent months. It was a trade for my Nintendo Switch game for another Nintendo switch game with the same value. At first I was hesitating because I had that game bought first-hand and I’ll be exchanging it for a game that is 2nd-hand at least. But I just thought that my game would no longer be used and it would be more useful for me to get that other game that I had not played yet. We traded and it was a fair trade for me.

There’s also a time I traded a digital skin or item on a game called DOTA 2 for a guitar Amp + cash and it was very worth it.

I use barter transactions frequently with my Mother-in-law and my wife. Mum needs my help with house and garden. OK, I do it, making the garden, hard work. What I get is she take care of our kids, when my wife cannot, and I´m in m 9-5. So my wife can go for some errand. Soo my hard earn “credit” moves from me to my wife,… It is totally not fair, all my credit goes to my wife (but she would do the same for me :-)). What I do not like is to carry in my memory how much “credit” I gave, and how much I already spent. It is hard to keep up with the balance. If there is heavy imbalance in our credit exchange, there is usually increased tensions betwewen us (the barter parties), so that some work must be done to get into ballance again. This is our everyday life. Barter is here for centuries, and will survive forever in my opinion.

when i was in middle school i use to have a side hustle which involved selling " Charms Pops" for a Quarter . I use to buy a bag ( wholesale) for a few bucks which came with 50 or so lollipops. needless to say at school it was easy to get kids interested in the exchange of 1 pop for 1 quarter . Who doesn’t love sweets? this was my first taste of bartering . I wanted a quarter , kid wanted sweets . Nice exchange :slight_smile:

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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?

I bought/bartered a jet ski from my brother. He wanted $3000.00. I gave him $1500 cash and painted some rooms in his house for the remainder. It was definitely worth the efforts. He was pleased with the paint job and I was pleased with the exchange of work for the jet ski.

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It is a bit hard to think of an example of an exact barter trade that I’ve been involved in, but I am frequently involved in reciprocal exchanges with neighbours. Many of my neighbours grow their own food so they give me surplus vegetables. I then reciprocate by giving them something I’ve baked, and so it continues. These are certainly fair trades in my opinion - each gives something the other is lacking.

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List the two items in the barter transaction and, looking back, did you think it was a fair exchange and why?

In the 90s growing up in Hawaii we use to trade POGS, I had a set a Slammers that barter for $20 and a few collector POGS it was the best trade ever because I got the Slammers for free and the $20 went to a video game.

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Back in 90s. I used to trade Pokémon’s for other Pokémon’s.

But I remember the trade itself did not use to be fair enough most of the time. I used to train for 12 months 1 creature since Level 5 until it finally reach Level 100. Now from this point there was a lot of time invested in order to achieve that kind of super Pokémon. I remember that people used to gave me in exchange for that specific task, for example a Master ball or a rare item.

Me on the other hand. I had cloned that Pokémon previously.

So thinking clearly right now, I was basically printing more Pokémon’s with high trained skills, in exchange for super rare items.

Which honestly was not fair, people did not know that cloning was something possible to do.

But beyond, that cloning was that worst thing. Because all the time invested in 1 Pokémon was now diluted between the original and its copies.

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As a child, I was into collecting Football & Basketball cards. Anytime i’d go over to my buddies house, we would trade cards. It was a fun hobby and we innately were able to determine value based on the rarity of a particular card and/or how popular/good the player on the card was.

I remember one day my obsession with collecting cards took a nosedive when I realized it was basically just pieces of cardboard and I started to lose interest.

I began learning about our monetary system about 10 years ago and how they simply create money out of thin air. This got me interested in Gold & Silver and eventually cryptos. The word “Fiat” was barely known or used at all back then. Now, it’s seen and used quite frequently. Inflation is starting to ramp up dramatically and the same strategies used during “The Great Debasement” are being used again today with a different kind of money. It’s going to be a wild ride to see how this all unfolds, but regardless of the control mechanisms currently in place, inevitably people will realize what’s happening and money will flow into hard assets.

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I once traded a car spotlight (new) for a vinyl record (used) I had no car to use the light on and the person I traded had just got his first car and he had used the record for a few weeks and was ready to trade.

For both of us it was a win win at the time, but now looking back the spotlight was much more valuable than the record and I should have asked for a few more records to make the trade fair.

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Hard to remember but maybe the first transaction was the famous pogs or flippos when I was a kid

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makes me think of Pokémon and Pokémon cards. I don’t remember the exact cards that were traded as I was in third grade except for getting a charizard. I probably hustled the other kid for it though to be honest hahaha. If only it was in good condition and an first edition them things in the hundreds of thousands now :astonished:

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I remember trading basketball cards with friends. Trading our “doubles” to get cards we didn’t have yet like the first DREAM TEAM. Traded high value cards to get the complete set.

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As an adult, I worked for a publication. We used to barter with trade show organizers. We provided them ad placements in our magazines for booth space at the show.

I believe it was a fair trade. The trade show organizers got to promote their show in our publications, which likely drove more attendance at the show – making it more effective for us as well as for the community at large.

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We used to barter at schools with our packed lunches from home. I did not like the Apricot Jam and Cheese sandwiches my mother packed, so would basically accept a trade if i was presented with either a Nutella, or Peanut Butter and Jam sandwich in exchange.

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I owned a collectible card than I traded with a friend for a new Playstation game that he owned.
Yes, I still think it was a decent trade as I really enjoyed the games and the card acted as a store of value which may friend later traded for another new game.

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We used to trade little cards of cars and football players back in the early 2000’s. Fun times. Obviously some players such as Ronaldinho or Tierry Henry or cars such as Lamorghini Gallardo or Bugatti Veiron had greater value so we were more hesitant to trade them as the chance of getting them from a package again was low. 90% of the times the trades were fair, when they weren’t though it wasn’t on purpose, it was just the fact that at the exact moment of the trade we didn’t realise the true value of the cards at hand. Oh yeah I also traded a turtle to a friend for an album filled with with cards of football players. I’d say it was a pretty decent trade.

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What cute stories you guys have, unfortunately I haven’t had this yet, I don’t know if it’s weird or normal. But it is pleasant and interesting for me to read your funny stories

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Activity Lesson 1:

When I was in elementary school, I would always trade food items with my friends at lunch. For example, if I wanted their cosmic brownie, I would have to give them goldfish. Some of the exchanges were fair, but other times they were not. It all depended on what the other person wanted and who you were dealing with.

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