You don't need to be an 'investor' to invest in Singletrack: 6 days left: 95% of target - Find out more
Tell me about your bartering prowess. Will you negotiate a discount anywhere?
I played a local taxi driver for 2 hours at chess in Bali about 25 years ago to settle a negotiation which saved me about 5p on the trip to the next resort. That was a satisfying win.
When I was about 16 I swapped my very average cannondale m500, for a minter explosif pro with suntour xc pro groupset.
Didn't actually haggle much thinking about it, guy just really wanted a cannondale!
I swapped girlfriends with my best friend 20 years ago. We've been married 18 years with 3 kids now so I guess that was pretty successful.
I convinced two guards that the droids they were looking for weren't the ones I had as passengers.
The greatest trick I ever pulled, was convincing the world I didn't exist.
Swapped 2 dead squirrels for a pound of mature Cheddar.
Jamie - Member
The greatest trick I ever pulled, was convincing the world I didn't exist.
Not so much a negotiation Jamie.
mattsccm - Member
Swapped 2 dead squirrels for a pound of mature Cheddar.
Pretty much the same thing. You gained nothing. Disqualified!
Swapped my Gt timberline for a graham weigh vitus
It was supposed to be a short term swap
Gt got nicked from my mates garage, I ended up with the vitus
Not so much a negotiation Jamie.
I dunno. I had to barter the world down from just thinking I didn't exist at weekends.
Managed to convince a chap to swap his six month old Silver Pigeon 5 for my year old Urika 2. Best swap of my life that.
When my local Comet was closing down I negotiated £350 off the price of a bean-to-cup coffee machine, snapping it up for £225. Still feel guilty.
There was a club night on in Birmingham and a few of us were going down from Sheffield on a coach organised by the club promoter.
Got to the pick up point and there were 5 people for a 55 seater coach. Coach driver plumb refused to take us.
I got on the phone to the promoter (who I didn't know at all - just happened one of the DJ's who was due to play was with us) and managed to convince him (mainly because said DJ was with us and he somewhat needed him there) to a) pay for a taxi from Sheffield to Birmingham, b) let us all in for free and c) give us £90 toward our taxi fare back to Sheffield afterward.
Cheers
Danny B
Managed to negotiate nearly £80 off the asking price of a gas analyser in Crack Converters. Got it for £150. I needed to test the amount of CO in my guffs. Turns out there isn't any. Nearly all methane and some added flavours. So, sold it on fleabay for £250.
I was pleased with myself that day.
Eggs, milk and flour to the same ratio by volume, and a pinch of salt and pepper.
that's batter, but it's near enough
Sheriff Fatman.
Managed to convince a chap to swap his six month old Silver Pigeon 5 for my year old Urika 2.
Any deal that involves getting rid of a semi-auto is a good one in my book!!
Unfortunately the only one that springs to mind is drunkenly haggling a taxi driver down to a lift home for a fiver, it normally costs about £20 on a Saturday night.
needed to test the amount of CO in my guffs
PhD thesis?
Offered ten percent off an inner tube. Got three Quiksilver rashies in exchange.
Nice.
On the taxi driver theme... once I lost my wallet on a night out and managed to get taken home for free in exchange for the cake I'd baked that day.
Best barter (in my mind) was on a recent expedition - where I was constantly hungry - I would take other leaders cups of tea to their tents in the mornings and get their chocolate bars.
Forks for television,
forks for loads of wood work round the house,
Trousers for a massive carpet in Morroco,
Shock service for a case of very nice red wine.
Checkup at the dentist (private, quite pricey) for some advice/troubleshooting his KVM switch.
[i]Trousers for a massive carpet in Morroco[/i]
My favourite sentence of the day
Haggle at every opportunity.
Haggled a 50% reduction on 2nd of two fillings at dentist.
Trousers for a massive carpet in MorrocoMy favourite sentence of the day
+1
I have a few good uns, but one that really stands out is not exactly a standard barter...
I worked for an events company in Sydney for the big day out (a festival), setting up the fencing and suchlike... was good craic, but they then decided they didn't need us any more in the middle of the night (the festival was in the Olympic park some way out of town) so the owners wife counted 20 of us to be taken to the site office for our details to be taken and our pay cut according to the hours we had not worked... I was at the back of the queue and snuck off into the shadows, finding the empty backstage lounge and mucking around in there for a bit.
A few weeks later, there was another festival, so I went to the backstage entrance and said I was there for the lighting... the security went and checked and said my shift wasn't due for another hour~ in the meantime, I had clocked the wristbands everyone was wearing to get in, which were purple.
I then went to a craft shop in town and bought some card of a similar shade and some labels and with some scissors and a small amount of cunning and artistry, doctored some homemade wristbands, with some pretty basic scribbling to mimic the writing on the band I had left over from the previous festival, then phoned up a few mates.
We went in through the main entrance and no-one blinked an eye.
I'm having a proper giggle writing this, because I'd forgotten all about it and it was pretty frickin satisfying 😆
Many years ago I worked in a hi-fi shop.
One day the receivers turned up to close the shop as the owner had neglected to pay any suppliers for quite some time.
As we were being told to leave I asked what about the amp I was going to buy and pointed to a top end Yamaha home cinema amp worth about £1300.
Receiver asked me how much it was and quick as a flash I said £150.
Paid them £150 got a had written receipt and left the shop with the amp under my arm (well both arms it was bloody heavy!)
I spent a few days in luxor, and every day traveled from the hotel on the west bank to the temples on the east bank. Every day I went to the ferry and assked how much.
£5.
that's a bit much how about £1?
And every day we settled for £2-£3
Until the last day, when I noticed there was a price list. Tourist price? .75c - awesome bartering ability by me
24 fosters beer towels for 10 cases of beer, corfu, 1989..... good night had by all...
Traded my clothes my boots and my motorcycle, for my life...
Also a cheapo HPDeskjet 550C for a posh LaserJet4M that lasted me 15 years after the swap.
Got stopped in Tanzania for "speeding" in a 30 year old Unimog, for which there was an on the spot fine. Managed to haggle it down it to a bottle of orange fanta.
Similar to some above.
A tray of Danish pastries for a taxi ride home.
£50 to DJ for 3 hours (I can't mix).
Run an event in return for a bar tab (£1200 bar tab racked up in 3 days, it's quite stressfull manageing 2000 people at 3am whilst battered).
I think there was still an outstanding bill for about £2k with Teralek, can't remember how we got out of that one.
richmtb the question was what have you bartered for, not what goods have you obtained by deception. 🙂
Not me but when I lived in Nigeria, a friend of mine's Dad got stopped by the police for 'speeding' - this translates as 'we want some cash'.
He wasn't speeding so refused to pay. They threatened to take him to the police station. He insisted, so did they. Eventually, he offered to drive them round to his house and give them a beer which they accepted. I was there when my mate's Dad and three traffic police walked in and proceeded to have beers at his bar, all very civilized.
A McD's cheese burger for a Saracen frame (BSO era)
I played with it for a while, with a pedal spanner. Then a vice. Great fun!
Work gloves for water on an offshore rig with no drinking water - only 1 cup of brown "fermented bread water" with each meal........
In the black sea off simpheropol ukraine - avoid there if your offered a job 😉
I swapped my 3.0 Ghia Capri for an MK1 Golf GTI, back when neither were worth anything. I learnt early on that all the VW reliability stuff was rubbish. Fast little thing though.
T-R: I love kvas! Suppose having neither a break from it nor enough of it would be a drag tho...
My heroes for ghosts
Hot ashes for trees
Hot air for a cool breeze
Cold comfort for change
But my best was probably swapping a shagged out CBR600 Sport for a much newer and more expensive 600F. I told the shop i wouldn't tell the police of their highly dubious activities if they did a straight swap. They agreed 😀
£1500 = brand new nukeproof mega AM 2012 + nukeproof critical armour + free delivery 😆
a couple of 1 MB SIMMs for a kebab burner.
Not the best but probably the most pointless
I once asked in a shop for fork handles and I ended up walking out with four candles.
#sorry
Phoned up Guinness and offered them 'sponsorship' of student sailing team racing event in Liverpool in 1994.
= two casks, a dozen slabs of cans, a banner, loan of pump and coolerdooferthing and some more casks 'purloined' from the truck by colleagues as I signed for the delivery.
8)
5k off a house, because the owner had failed to present a list of furniture within a reasonable length of time. The furniture was worth about 300, and he still sold the house fully furnished 😉
Also had an ongoing dealer with the Burrows Hill cider bus (the one that goes to Glastonbury) for Burritos for hot and spicy cider, mutually beneficial deal for the 3 seasons I did running the wagon kitchen 😀