Activity Lesson 1

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?

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The primary barter that I had as a child was exchanging packed lunches at school. There was almost a set standard that “Ho Hos” or most any treat created by Hostess was worth its weight in gold. Typical trades were Ho Hos for 2 other treats like homemade cookies. Determined validity of the trade for participants varied.
Sadly, my mother went through a period of packing “healthy food” and no one would trade for my Tiger Carob bar which tasted horrible.

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It was hard to remember anything, using currency is just to ingrained.

I do remember trading hockey cards with friends. We would trade our “doubles” to get cards we didn’t have yet. Some cards were more valuable than others so sometimes you’d need to trade more than 1 card of lesser value for a higher value card.

Oh dessert and snack trading! I do seem to remember this as well. Don’t think I traded much. Marbles was another big thing at one elementary school I went to.

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I remember trading pokemon cards back when I was young. I traded a few rare trainers for a shiny Venesaur (or something like that).

I though it was fair because I was getting perceived “value” i.e. the card I was getting has the same value of the cards I was trading away.

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Once, when I was a kid, I have traded my fishing slingshot to not being beaten up 3 older kids. It was totally worth it… :rofl: After that I just threw the fish food into the lake by hand. :joy:

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as kids when playing marbles there were various types and sizes of marbles. we would trade (barter) amongst ourselves for different marbles. I would barter some of my gladd marbles for other glass marbles to get the types of ones i liked…eg a plain colored glass marble for a clear marble with colored “catseye” indide it. Also A glasss marble for one made of steel.

It was fair and fun. Both parties were satified and felt they had received value for value.

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As a child, I remembered playing monopoly and trade properties cards. If my properties were less valuable than my opponent because of its location for example, my power of negotiation was at stake and inevitably had to put in cash or any other means :wink: to get all the necessary properties to on build on houses, hotels. :wink:

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In early school I bartered my empty, worn wallet to a fellow student for his wallet which had $20 in it.
Needless to say, his mother was not happy with this and unfortunately, my mother received a phone call from her and I had to return it. :slight_smile:

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I used to exchange football stickers as a child. There were extremely rare stickers and I even had some of them double. In the exchange business you could easily get 15-20 “normal” stickers for it. Looking bakc, I have to say, it was a fair deal, because the other person got the rare sticker and in return I got the other missing stickers to complete the album.

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Alright it was the early 90’s when I was 11 and I exchanged a poster of Pamela Anderson (not that I didn’t have more safely stored) into a few brand new CDs from a rich kid. Funny thing was the next week his parents bought him a gel gun and while testing it he shot Pamela right in the eye and messed it up. Man, he was furious :wink:

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We traded car cards very often and the cards with the card with the most HP had the highest value. At one point the value was a big as a Mars Bar. I would say now that the car cards is much more valuable than the Mars bar, both because it has been eaten or rottened both also because the card cards is now very scarce and therefore represents a high value for collectors

More recently I have exchanged a favor for one person where the receiver ex took me on a boat trip as payment for the favor which could be helping with movement of furnitures etc
Here the

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I have exchanged glass marbles by iron ones (bearing balls), for me was always harder to get some iron ones because they come from unassembly of bearings. Other exchanges include water guns and sport teams trading cards. I always had a feeling I was not so good trader, so feelings of always paying too much in those trades, but to play some of the games it was really mandatory to have some iron bearing balls.

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The Primary barter that i had as a child was pencil boxes and erasers, I used to collect different shapes in exchange of delicious food made by my mom.

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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?

  • Baseball card for pog chip lol i thought it was worth it at the time, both very speculative investments if you could even call them that and the entertainment from having something different was worth it!
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My friends and I would trade playstation games so we did not have to keep buying games. Worth it.

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I just built an aquaponic micro-farm. Years ago my next door neighbor planted fruit trees. We trade my vegetables and berries for his fruit. It’s not always even, but the economy between us enriches us both. We both produce way more than our families can eat…until the grocery store supply chain breaks down. Then we’ll be keeping records and haggling exchange rates. Until then we’re just practicing…and I’m trying to talk him into crypto so we can leapfrog the whole medieval thing when the dollar breaks down.

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As a child, playing “Marbles” exchanging One “Snake-eyes” marble for 10 standard ones… So a special one had more perceived value beacuse of its beauty and rarity… Was worth it for me :slight_smile:

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The first one that came to my mind was the trade I did with my friend when I was 14 years old or something like that. I traded my PlayStation video game console to his Nokia 3110 cellphone because I didn’t have one but I had to have it. It was good trade for me because the phone was clearly more expensive item than at that point already old PlayStation. We both accepted it, so I think it was good.

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I exchanged vegetable seeds for some vegetable plants with a friend. I think it was a pretty good trade. I guess the risk on both sides is will the vegetable plants/seeds survive and yield well. Plus time, however could also prove a good investment down the road. Yielded veggies and seeds for next season.

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Haha, I remember swapping Pokemon cards or a snack for homework answers.

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