Hi Everyone,
I saw something somewhere about a man who started with a paperclip and then 'traded it up' to a yacht! Now i dont know if i really believe he did this, so i want to try myself! Obviously im not expecting to get a yacht out of it but wondered if anyone would help?

So im starting with a blank birthday card. It comes with a red envelope. It seems to be suited to a boy with a cartoon kid bowling on the front.

Will anyone trade this for something better?
I will then go on to try and trade the new thing for something better and so on!

I will post it to you and you post whatever it is to me

Sounds like an interesting experiment . Good luck!

Sounds.. interesting

I dont really get it
So say u send a blank card to me, i would send claire something a little bit better for example... a pen (:S) then claire would send snoopy a dairy lol, then snoopy would send some else a photo frame until it ended up something better and better?
How do u decided when it ends?

No I think its like jess sends me the card and I send her a pen.... Jess then offers to swap the pen.... claire offers to take the pen and send jess a diary... jess then offers to swap the diary... you offer to take the diary and send a photo album... jess then offers to swap the photo album... lisa offers to take the photo album and sends a CD... jess offers to swap CD... Jen offers to take it and sends a handbag... You get it yet terri?

Its Jess/whoever starts it that ends up getting something better each time.

Its a nice idea but basically your asking for someone to give you something better than what you are offering.

It may work better in a local sense. Cost of postage may put people off even more. Eg sending a pen incl P&P and then getting a card in return may not appeal to many.

no, basically, i only need one swap, or more if anyone else wants to help, but iv got the card, and if someone says they have... say a pen to swap, then they send me a pen and i send them the card, then someone else wants to swap me, say a diary for a pen so we send the items to each other, obviously then everyone else could swap their items if they wanted to, but sometimes someone may not need the slightly better item, but really wants the slightly worse item... does that make any sense at all lol?


To make it worthwhile for everyone... lets say, if i did ever get something worth any money, id donate half (atleast) of the money to banda.

I googled it and it is quite interesting

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclip

Dont think id be so lucky but!

jessicar1990 wrote:

no, basically, i only need one swap, or more if anyone else wants to help, but iv got the card, and if someone says they have... say a pen to swap, then they send me a pen and i send them the card, then someone else wants to swap me, say a diary for a pen so we send the items to each other, obviously then everyone else could swap their items if they wanted to....

Thats what I said!

yeah i know lol just thought id say it again and add the bit about if people needed the slightly worse thing lol...

Lol ok i get (i think!) Im going to google it later too

sounds interesting, bit like a money tringle kinda thing x

Was that the pyramid thing years ago gemz? When you got like X number of people to give you £100 and then they could start their own pyramid? The people that got in 1st got like cpl thousand pounds and the ones at the end lost their £100.

I never totally understood why people handed out their money 1st? Why didnt they just start their own and ask for £? Did you have to be in the official pyramid club? It confused me at the time and still does!

i dunno whay they did it everyone ends up better of, except the people who break the pyramid and face it, it has to stop somewhere, no way id ever do one

think its something like...7 people give you x amount, then them 7 find 7 others to give them x amount so on and so on so say if its £100 you would all be £700 better off, but the end ones would be £100 worse off x

I'm confused LOL xx

I never got why they handed the money to you in the 1st place? Why didnt they go.. 'eh thanx for the idea... im off to find 7 numptys!'

We are clearly missing an important part to this.. or the people that did it were very dim!

SemoandHaribo wrote:

I'm confused LOL xx

About the trade up idea or money triangles/pyramids?

oh dear... now it sounds like im trying to do a pyramid scheme! which i am not, because they are illegal!

The triangles lol messing with my head ........... although the trading up thing sounds like it involves too much thinking!! xx

was the triangle not meant to be some form of saving /loan scheme ? ,,say everyone put 5 in a week and every week 1 person in group would get everyones 5 pound and so on or was that another scheme ?x

jessicar1990 wrote:

oh dear... now it sounds like im trying to do a pyramid scheme! which i am not, because they are illegal!

We not saying that at all!!! Trading things is obviously different and happens legally everyday on forums/facebook, even freecycle in a way. What you're doing is fine!

Semo the trade up thing doesnt involve that much thinking... you offer to something to trade and get offered something a bit better, then swap what you get..
I dont get the triangle thing either!

michelle&danielle wrote:

was the triangle not meant to be some form of saving /loan scheme ? ,,say everyone put 5 in a week and every week 1 person in group would get everyones 5 pound and so on or was that another scheme ?x

Maybe. I never understood it. Im pretty sure it was more than £5 though as some people lost a lot of money. Maybe you're right though and they put in £5/10 for weeks and that show people got stung so badly.

That sounds like a cool idea! Except the cost of me posting anything would be ridiculous. But I like the idea of it, like if I needed a cute card, and had, say, a pen for xmas that i didn't really use, it would cost us less to swap than for me to go and buy a card, right? Then Jess could trade the pen for something that she likes better - but the person getting the pen would like the pen better, so everyone wins!

Good luck with it, let us know if you get any good trades!

exactly i will let you know xx