Quest For a Benz

Today my coworker (Scott Goff) gave me an autographed business card that could be worth untold value in the future. I decided to test it's market value and see if I could trade up to a premium luxury vehicle for it. I know it's risky since the card could go up in value, but hey, you got to take risks right? Let's roll em and see what we get. Here is a picture of the trade.

HCSS VP Tom Webb recognized the value in a Scott Goff autographed business card and immediately swooped up the deal. I was able to get a programmable handheld fan for the card. It runs on regular batteries and displays an LCD message in the blades as it is running. The trade pic is here . Next up I am hoping for something like a toy tractor that we have around the office here. But I am open to any trade offers.

Shortly after trading for the fan I learned that it was going to be easily available to employees at my company in a few months. This would translate to a decreased value for the fan. I decided to take a small loss and "trade down" to a set of colorful magnets. They are fun to play with and can be interesting to the right person. Here is the trade pic. I am going to start on the internet tonight and see what I can get for the magnets. In a way, trading with the low dollar items can be more difficult. Most of those trades are going to require on-the-spot evaluations, where I might guess that a $200 item is worth $400. But the big items will be researchable and I can show up prepared. One thing is for sure; when this is all said and done I will have connected a lot of people with things they hopefully wanted more and will be driving to work in a $93,000 vehicle. How sweet is that?

After making a post on Craigslist I got an email from Elaine in Houston. She had a Sony Boombox going to waste and an interest in magnets. It was a perfect match! (Truth be told she just wanted to help me get going on my quest) So I packed out of work a little early and headed up to the meeting point about an hour away. I arrived 10 minutes early at a restaurant where we were to meet and started to wonder how we would find each other. I had not left my description (although she had seen this site so I was hoping she at least saw one of the trade pics) and I did not have a number for her. Before long she pulled in with her husband and baby. We had a few laughs out in the parking lot and then made the exchange. This trade definitely made my day. I went from a paperweight-type toy to the next level. The boombox plays cassettes and CDs, AM and FM radio, and has some very nice speakers. I tested it out and everything works; this baby is ready for the market. Stay tuned for the next trade.

On another note I checked the Mercedes website and the price for the SL550 has jumped ~3K to $96,075.

After a day on Craigslist I got a decent offer for the boombox. The Baytown Santa contacted me with a microwave. In this case Santa needed a boombox to give one of the kids and had a spare microwave in the inventory. Although this was only a slight trade up dollarwise I liked the idea of the boombox going to a child that won't get much else for Christmas. So I made the trip up and enjoyed some time with Baytown Santa. They are collecting toys and usable items and matching them with needy children for the Christmas season. We talked for a while about the charity, made the trade, and I was off. But as we all know a microwave is not a car. So it is now up on the trading block.

I think it is only a matter of time before I get an offer that requires a big trip. That will be cool though. I am having a great time meeting people and traveling around the area. There are several places in the country I have never been and this may be a chance to go see some of them.

For the last month I have been looking everywhere for a trade. Something I had not realized was that almost everybody already has a microwave. The few responses I got on Craigslist were for less useful items. So I started to feel out what kind of things some of my friends had that they were getting rid of. Surely somebody would be throwing out something that can be marketed for value. At this point in the game, that is the kind of item I have.

Before long I found a coworker, Mark Reeves, who had a few computer accessories laying around. A computer he had purchased a year ago had come with a printer, keyboard, and speakers that he did not need. They were still sitting in the box. So he took the microwave in exchange for the computer parts. Mark later donated the microwave to a needy family. No matter how it happened I am happy to have made a trade after a long month of searching. Now I have to figure out how to get something for these computer parts.

It didn't take long to get replies for the computer items. I figured they were worth a total of $30 if I could find someone interested in all of them. One guy offered me a 20" tv for the printer and speakers. Since he was vague about the tv set I knew it wouldn't be great. But as long as it works I could see they are selling on eBay for at least $60 and I would just have to wipe down the exterior. I took the deal but only agreed to give him the printer.

I left work the next day and went straight to the meetup point. We were meeting at a Burger King at 7:30; I got there at 7:15 and waited. The guy arrived about 10 minutes late but was ready to move. He lives in the city I graduated high school in so I was hoping to talk a little about how the city is doing. But he wasn't very conversational. He just wanted to get the trade completed and move on. Looking back I think he felt bad about giving me such a bad tv and didn't want to stick around and chat. The set is pretty ugly but everything appears to work. After about 30 minutes of work I should be able to make it presentable.

So I now have a TV, keyboard, and speakers. I do not plan to let this get out of control but have no problem letting the items split like this. As long as the end result is the Benz I am happy with the method used to get there.

My company writes software for construction companies so we tend to have a lot of construction toys around the office. At work today my boss was feeling charitable and offered to give me one of his toy bulldozers. Knowing I had the speakers and keyboard available I found out that he could use the speakers on his home system. Easy as that I had another trade. This time I traded some computer speakers worth $5-10 for a toy bulldozer that retails for $37. It is hard to imagine who would give me much for the dozer but it has to be easier than marketing some flimsy speakers. My inventory now includes the TV, keyboard, and the toy bulldozer.

Over the past several days I have marketed the TV and bulldozer with limited success on craigslist. They seem like they will sell eventually if I wait for the right offer. Amazingly I ran into another offer from a coworker that resulted in my latest trade. I am really surprised at how many trades can be found in my circle of friends. It might just be that I am working on small items now so they are easy to shift around. But either way my coworker Blake had an incomplete computer that he wasn't doing anything with. But he does need a keyboard for his home system so he made the trade. The rough details are that I traded a brand new keyboard for a Pentium III, 667 MHz computer, a monitor, a used printer, surround sound speakers, and regular speakers. That leaves me without a mouse, keyboard, CD drive, or power cord to the computer. My plan is to trade one of the other items for what is missing and hopefully get a complete system for trading.

My current inventory is now a TV, toy bulldozer, and incomplete computer system.

Craigslist is an interesting place. Before this game came up I had never been there. But I am now finding all kinds of ways to use it. Outside of the trading game I have been purchasing items for my house and yard. I found that people are giving away some decently valuable items in the free section in some cases. This can be a real jackpot if I can be the lucky person to respond first to the right free ad.

Today was my lucky day because that is what happened. I was actually the third person to respond but the first to show up. A family was moving out of my brother's subdivision to Atlanta. So anything that didn't fit in the truck had to go. I brought the bulldozer along in case they had anything I could use in the trading game. After picking up a bookshelf and several small shelves they told me the entertainment center had to go. I asked how much it would cost and, after some discussion among themselves, they said I could have it for free. It is a little nicked up but is definitely better than my bulldozer. I offered the bulldozer in exchange and their kid loved the dozer. In my mind this was another good trade. It's all about taking one person's trash and finding someone that considers it a treasure. After a wipedown I should be able to put the entertainment center on the market soon.

My inventory is now a TV, an incomplete computer, and an entertainment center.

Monitoring the free section paid off big this time. A posting came up this morning for 3 executive desks. An office was restructuring and didn't need them anymore. Denese, the contact, gave me the address and I immediately hooked up the trailer, picked up my wife's brother (Hien), and drove to the office. One of the desks was in a newer style and in pretty good condition so I let Hien take it for his home office. The other two are in need of refinishing but are structurally sound and mostly complete. We spent about an hour loading up the trailer since they are solid wood and very heavy. But in the end it was worth it. Denese told me she could use the surround sound speakers for her computer so it was another good trade opportunity for me. After refinishing these kinds of desks go for $400-500 + delivery online. Now I am not a professional refinisher nor do I have all the supplies at home, but I do have a few sheets of sandpaper and some finish from a wood project years ago that can be used. With any luch I can make these desks fairly marketable. In my opinion this trade was a huge stepping stone towards getting into trades for items of real value.

The inventory is now a TV, an entertainment center, an incomplete computer, and two executive desks.

At this point I decided it was best to trade the tv for enough computer parts to complete my computer. I didn't realize how many people out there have spare parts to computers until posting this ad. I got several replies but one person was particularly persistent. It was Christmas Eve and Aaron was trying to round up items to complete his wife's gift. He had all the items I asked for and even threw in a mouse on top of it in exchange for the tv. The main catch was that he wanted the trade tonight. So my wife and I loaded up the car and drove over to meet Aaron at 2 AM on Christmas Day. We made the trade and I also purchased a mouse from him for my personal computer. This gave everyone involved a nice feeling to have come together and served everyone's needs at this time of year. I now had the tools to complete my computer and Aaron could give his wife the presents he had planned.

It later turned out that I was far from finished with getting this computer ready. If you have ever had to flash the memory on your motherboard, flush the CMOS, and install matched-versioned BIOS and Controller drivers on your computer before getting it to run then you know what I went through. And did I mention the drivers were not supported anymore so I had to search for a few hours to find them in a newsgroup post? This turned out to be a very enlightening experience as to what IT people go through when setting up computers. I know it is not always that bad but I feel for them. All in all, I now have a working computer to add to my list.

The inventory is now an entertainment center, a complete computer with an extra set of speakers (from Aaron), and two executive desks.

Jonathan contacted me with a chess set that he wanted exchange for the computer. I had received several offers for the computer but most were lowballs. Pretty much everybody is going for a tradeup so it is tough to make progress sometimes. I turned down the trade at first but called the number he left to see if it was a decent set. It turned out the set was decent and probably an even trade for the computer. I don't generally want to accept these but Jonathan had his apartment broken into over the holidays and was in need of a computer. The computer was really an auxiliary item so I decided to make the trade.

I didn't get the name of the apartment complex and Jonathan did not have a cell phone. This wound up being the formula for an odd discovery. He had given me an apartment number and a gate code. So when I arrived at the location I tried calling to get the complex name. Since he was out picking up his wife I decided to try the code on a gate. If it works I figure that is the complex. After driving around a bit I found the building but soon discovered that it had one fewer units than required for the apartment number provided. This had me wondering if it was a big hoax to make someone (me) drive out there for nothing. After a few minutes of him not answering I decided to try another complex. My years of pizza delivery (about 5 years for Dominos) told me that sometimes several complexes in an area will use the same gate code.

Sure enough the gate across the street opened with the same code and I quickly found the unit. Jonathan was not home but after a short wait he drove up. He was in a bit of a hurry so we made the trade outside and I drove back home. It was a good feeling to get somebody an item they really needed and retain my value for the quest. With that I am getting ready for a trade tomorrow morning.

The inventory is now an entertainment center, a chess set, a set of speakers, and two executive desks.

The entertainment center has been in my possession for nearly a month now. Offers have come in over that time including an unsolicited cash offer of $75. Some have been decent but nothing that I could say was a definite trade up. Then I got an offer from Barry that I couldn't refuse. He had $293 in brand new paintball gear that had never been used. It was originally a Christmas gift but he was unable to ship it or sell it on craigslist, so it sat in his closet collecting dust. I had an entertainment center that he could put a tv on and it looked like a perfect fit. The delivery was much more difficult and messy than I had expected though.

It has been raining for several days and I almost postponed because of this, but the skies cleared just in time for me to make the delivery. As I loaded up the trailer the rain came back a few times and caused me to rush the tarp over it and do a shoddy job of tying down the pieces. Not to matter though because the drive would be slow. Even on the freeway I would not get above 50 mph. When I made it to Barry's house the bad loading job was evident but luckily it was not a real issue. The center was intact and we got it inside before any more danger of rain returned. We chatted a bit about trading and found a small connection. He is dating a teacher of autistic children and I was once diagnosed with autism. Kind of a small world in that. But I had to run off to work so took off after a few minutes. This was another good trade where both sides seemed to benefit.

About the quest I am now starting to see how it will probably shape out. This started out as a nice hobby to see how far it could go. I have learned a lot about bartering and trading things. But I have also learned a few things about computer work and wiping down items. In the background I have also been working on getting the desks ready to trade. What I am saying is that while it does not break any rules I am going to change my method of doing this. Going forward I am trying to get items that I can work on a bit to make them worth more. I will obviously take clean tradeups but I have had fun learning a few trades on a minor level. It also has become evident that traveling outside of Houston may not be necessary. I am certainly open to it but there are probably plenty of trades available here for me to progress. Only when an item fails here for a while will I go looking in other areas.

The inventory is now some paintball gear, a chess set, a set of speakers, and two executive desks.

Paintball gun and gear. The moment I got this I had quite a bit of interest from friends and craigslist users alike. The first offer I liked was from a coworker named Jeff. He offered his Bowflex that he had paid $2500 for and was still in excellent condition. Although the resale value is much lower this would have been a definite tradeup from the paintball stuff. This deal fell through the next day and I had to keep looking. A friend of mine in Georgia offered his mountain bike but we later found out that it was worth less than we thought. Several people on craigslist offered various items and I tried to offer it to a few people. In the end I found a guy named Tommy who had a few nice items up for trade.

He had a broken down 4-wheeler, a jukebox, and several other niche type machines. I took a small chance and accepted the jukebox. It was a relatively short drive to a storage shed he had it in. I knew it was a good deal since these boxes can go for $800-1000 so I took it without trying to verify that it runs. In fact, I still haven't done that. The box is loaded with 45's mostly in country music. Tommy is getting married soon and is going out to play some paintball so he took the trade as a no-cash way to get a nice setup. After he showed me a few more items in the storage (that I may trade for in the future) I tied the jukebox down and drove it home.

The inventory is now a jukebox, a chess set, a set of speakers, and two executive desks.