I know it’s been a while since my last trade. Some of you may have thought that I stalled out or quit. Here is a quick recap before I tell you the details of the rubies I have now…
Back in July, I saw that a guy had used an old fundraising technique in which the band, or cheerleaders, or art department or something hands out paperclips to the kids and asks them to offer to trade paperclips for items to auction off to raise money. Kyle MacDonald traded oneredpaperclip for a house in Canada.
I admired what he had done. I had written about some other ways of acquiring what you want with what you have in Rough Living: An Urban Survival Manual , a book I self published a few years ago that tells you how to get what you want from life and how to survive with little or nothing.
I loved the way everyone was able to win in the trading. There is such a thing as a win-win. Sometimes it is hard to remember that in this “war on this, war on that” culture. Someone does not have to lose for you to win. That is why Kyle was able to trade a red paperclip for a house. I heard a lot of people grumbling that they wished they had done it, it would only work for one person, it would never work again, etc etc..
Bullocks. The win win is a universal availibility. If you are able to look for the win win situations, you will find them. I decided to prove all the naysayers wrong by repeating the same thing. I would trade for a house too, only instead of starting with a paperclip, I decided to start with my old veraflex skateboard.
When I started posting on craigslist, I was surprised to hear from people that were angry, annoyed, and really just mean jerks. They actually took the time from their day to write me emails about how stupid I was, how worthless my skateboard was, and how much it annoyed them to see me trying to do what someone else had already done. I imagined what it must of been like for the guy that decided to build a plane after the Wright Brothers flew or the guy that wanted to build a factory with assemblylines like Henry Ford’s for his car. The world is home to many miserable people that want nothing so much as to see you fail.It is also home to lots of people with imagination, creativity, and a sense of adventure. I like to think that the people reading this are among the latter. I was contacted with words of support by many people and I was offered great trades from all over the United States. Because I am in Hawaii, it was important to find someone that was willing to trade by mail. There were at least a dozen offers for my old skateboard that I considered and along the way I met a lot of interesting folks. I even exchanged a copy of Rough Living: An Urban Survival Manual for a copy of The Hillbilly Dikshunery with the author of it, a guy named Tom Legg in Florida who was also looking to do some trading.
After weighing all the offers, I decided to accept an offer from Bryan Dodd , an artist in Georgia who wanted to use my old skateboard in his art. Bryan generously agreed to trade the Red Devil below by R.A. Miller, a famous “outsider” folk artist that recently passed away and painted his work on the tin from old chicken houses. This was a very kick ass first trade.
And that almost brings me to the rubies. The Red Devil brought several false starts because of logistics or the trades changing along the way and in the midst of that a sociopathic nutcase decided to start sending me hatemail and try harrassing me into stopping my quest for a house. He got me virtually barred from posting ads on craigslist using my standard email and did some really slimy things with my email address and phone number. A real jerk.Once I began ignoring the loser sociopath, I was contacted by Bob Grove of Alexandria Barter Exchange.
Bob, a gemologist, has a lot of high quality gems and jewels and, being a fan of R.A. Miller’s work, he offered to trade me Rubies from Madagascar for the Red Devil. It took us a while to work out all the details and get the trade to the point where I could write about it and because of the false starts for the Red Devil previously, I was a little wary of talking this trade up before the rubies were in my hand. Well…as you might have guessed, the rubies are now in my hand, and I am willing to consider new trades?Consider the ruby…Ruby, July’s birthstone, is aptly named the King of Gems. Both the Bible and ancient Sanskrit writing depict the ruby as the most precious of all gemstones. To the Hindus, ruby burned from an inextinguishable internal fire. The name ruby is derived from the Latin word for red, rubrum. Its color varies from purplish and bluish red to orange-red in medium to dark hues. Sister to sapphire, ruby is known in the mineral world as corundum, which is a crystal structure composed of aluminum oxide. Only red corundum is ruby, all other corundum colors are classified as sapphire. Ruby is considered the most valuable variety of the corundum. In fact, large rubies have consistently brought higher prices per carat at auctions than the most flawless, colorless diamonds! This is primarily due to the rarity of gem-quality rough ruby.
Now, what will you give for a handful of rubies?
A house perhaps?
To the proprieter/creator of the “deal” that started with a skateboard,
I am extremely impressed with your attitude towards bartering. It is the idealism that you have to see the big picture. Individualistic opinions and creativity are the catalyst for successful entrepenuers. You must always strive to seek what others can not see. Dont let the “byproducts of america” ever shun you from your goals. I actually take humor from their ignorance when I myself receive thier rebuttals to say it kindly.
Please keep in touch with me and let me know where your journey takes you.
Condolences…
Best of luck. i’d love to have the rubies! They are beauties. The house is the coolest idea! Maybe I’ll give it a try.
cew
hi,
i conduct a small management consulting practice. i’m evolving a cross promotional strategy involving over 100 small advertisers. the on-line marketing partner is eSidewalk.com.
the barter options i’m interested in exploring involve exchanging equity in real estate and/or annuities contract payments. there are additional definite prospects of eSidewalk.com participating in an ipo. it’s a 3 y/o music community social networking web site—somewhat of a micro version of myspace.com at present. eSidewalk.com has aprox. 10,000 registered members. some of the eligible real estate is investment oriented. it’s economic value is transferable to Honolulu; where an escrow account is being held concerning a recent condo sale from the portfolio at issue.
depending on the value the rubies really have to be recognized for some of the eligible properties range in values from $ 35K to millions of dollars. i’m particularly excited about a 193,000 six building complex in Hoboken, NJ, which we internally refer to as Tribeca West. in the context of the multi-generational trade sequences you’ve alluded to [a la….from paperclip to a house] the best inception trade might very well involve a 22,500 sf discounted leasehold governing a proposed media/arts center in Pottstown, Pennsylvania. that landlord is former rare films promoter and antique shop owner—being confronted with the brunt of the declining real estate market. his building has 28,000 sf; we’ve formulated a 20 year lease over 22,500 sf under terms that specifically include leveraging the earnings above $ 4 psf into acquisition of the Tribeca West development site (which is basically 7 times the Pottstown venue). the leasehold is predicated on obtaining independent financing to operate the media arts center & some artifact collections which my clients own.
hence, we’d be taking your rubies to the same financiers which are interested in funding the artifacts & media activities, as part of our exit strategy. you’d correspondingly be able to accept cash as the currency for the leg of the swap that you’d wish to divest from under whatever time-frame you’d find synergistic. the cash distributions could of course be stagged over a long-term, integrating annuities contract disbursements, or a combination of stock related dividends.
the underlying cross promotion is including Pakistani and Saudi Arabian interests. among the larger advertisers is actively trading hard goods ranging from Akron & Cleveland (Ohio) warehouses and apartment buildings, on through used appliances, coffee, tea and coco (imported from Kenya)—as well as oil. they’re Sunni Muslim, embarking on the cafe’ licensing partnership industry. consequently they can offer equity in store deals; or supplier contracts.
a 9,000 sf Sag Harbor opulent summer home within walking distance of the Johnnie Cochran family Long Island home; along with another elderly distinguished lawyer owned Manhattan 2 bedroom condo on E. 30th St. near Park Ave. South are equally up for exploration, subject to the price the ruby collection would appraise for (as well as the timing which would govern any transactions you’d want to undertake). since we’ve got a bunch of lawyers anxious to relocate to Honolulu on a full, or part-time basis we could further structure a buy-back provision that renders the rubies a floating collateral for some string of ensuing propositions. that language might be enunciated under a master-lease format (or financining instrument) technique.
i recently personally inherited partial interests in two NYC properties totalling 8,000 sf, with a combined value of $ 1.5M. my equity’s worth nearly $ 500K; the balance is controlled by my parents and the widow of my uncle—who is my very recent former employer. there’s only $ 24K in mortgage debt on those sites (costing $ 650 per month). tens of thousands of jazz, gospel and civil rights related artifacts are stored inappropriately in the basements of the two buildings. i’m commercializing those collections which the Smithsonian Institute shares phyisical custody over some of the more pertinant personal collections, which they too have stored in a huge basement in Washington, D.C. owing to their lack of space to publicly display the items.
the master-lease idea alluded to features the prospect of integrating the Smithsonian, as a beneficiary to the space being re-developed throughout the portfolio. there are 5M s/f of improved facilities targeted under a training component which the aforementioned Sunni contingent is serving as senior minority property developers for.
i look forward to our being of strategic advantage to one another.
Yeah Chris,
You might want to put your attorney on alert. But if I understood this right, sounds like you might be able to trade the rubies, (or their worth) for some sort of real estate. Good luck. You might be able achieve the ultimate trade faster that the ‘red clip’.
This deal seems to be going through. I am excited to tell you guys about it. The deeds are drawn up and simply need to be recorded. I’m not sure why I would want to contact an attorney though…William?
Chris Sangster needs to learn to write, if nothing else. What a crock of crap it all is anyway!
Cheers…
Hey, Chris… *What* deal seems to be going through? It’s been so long since the last entry, I’m sure a lot has happened.
Hey, BTW, thanks to your support, I’m now up to a reading/or house “cleansing” from a Psychic.
Please check out my website for the latest on what’s going on. It’s been quite a ride.. for SURE!