Day 298

Lately, bartering seems to have moved past baseball cards and Barbie clothes and taken on a new life.  All kinds of websites and services have materialized to facilitate every manner of exchange.   Of course, I love the concept and appreciate that it doesn’t put anything NEW into circulation and that two items or services are getting a useful second life.  Trading should be mutually beneficial and both parties feel like there was a good outcome.

But, aside from things like book and clothing swaps, I think good trades are few and far between and much harder to come by than popular television would have us believe.  Have you heard about the reality show, Barter Kings, on A&E?

A DISCLAIMER

I have not seen an entire episode of Barter Kings, just bits and pieces.  But, I feel like I’m an expert, because at least a dozen times, I have been the recipient of an enthusiastic detailed description of the show during The Simple Year.

The premise is that two guys start with something small, like a book of poetry and then after a series of trades wind up with something large, like a centrifuge.   I don’t know, based on some of the “trade history”, I’m somewhat skeptical.   Primarily because these guys keep trading up in value by hundreds, sometimes even thousands of dollars, which means they have a whole string of people that in theory aren’t getting something as good in exchange.   Not only does it seem a bit unscrupulous, but HELLO, they are on TV, it’s no secret who they are.  What person in their right mind would enter into an agreement with these guys knowing they were going to be “taken”?

It’s like the bully in the lunch room that “negotiates” a trade of his carrot sticks for another kid’s pizza pocket. Although the difference, I guess, is that that the pizza pocket kid doesn’t get a chance to be on TV, which is why I suspect that many of these deals get done.

In the spirit of The Simple Year, I thought I would try my hand at bartering.  Here was my ad on Craigslist:

I have two unopened boxes of Keurig White Chocolate K-Cups, each with 22 in them (roughly $30-35)

I would like to trade for any of the following:
Canning Jars and rings
Printer Ink for a Cannon Multipass MP 700
Compact Flash Memory Card Reader

I think those things are all in the same value ballpark. If you have any of those items that you don’t use and would like to trade, let me know.

 Weeks passed and I didn’t hear a thing, perhaps I was too specific in my desires.  I noticed on Craigslist most of the trade offers are left pretty open ended.  The offers are worded as such, Willing to trade champion horse semen for ?????;  I also noticed someone who wanted to trade his Olympic weight set for a firearm.  Sadly, I’m not making that up.

In any case, I finally gave the pods away to a friend and incidentally got a call from someone a day or two later offering to buy them. I’m not giving up entirely on the idea of The Swap, but so far based on my single attempt, I haven’t had much luck.

For those interested, here is a pretty good list of various barter sites.