Trading Update…Bye Bye Sailboat

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You guys probably remember that I traded a skateboard for art, art for rubies, and then, I traded the rubies for a Cal 20 sailboat. Before making the trade, Tracy, the guy with the boat wanted to go to the jewelers to find out about the gems. We didn’t get a certified appraisal but the gemologist at Kay Jewelers said that the rubies were worth between $100 to $1000 each!!! I felt a little bit sick because I was trading him 60 of them for a boat worth about $1500 but I figured I had already agreed to the trade and a deal was a deal. We signed the paperwork and I figured that was that, I got a big brass boathook, started cleaning up the boat (she was a bit of a mess), and figured I would make the best of a not so great trade. I was still pretty happy to have a sailboat and looking forward to sailing on sunny days here in Hawaii. Just about two weeks later, I get a call from Tracy telling me that he wants to trade back. He tried to sell the rubies but everyone wanted an appraisal and he didn’t want to fork out the dough for one (neither do I actually) and he asked me if he could trade back for the boat. At this point, I felt like I had invested a bit of energy into the boat and I didn’t really want to, but I’m a bit of a compassionate guy at times and so I said okay after he started rhapsodizing about how much he loved that boat, how much he missed her, how he felt like a part of him had died when we traded. The emails I had started to get from friends about the problems in owning a boat, some issues about mooring ($$$ issues), and the termites that were well on their way to eating the cabin helped to make me compassionate. Also I was glad to get the rubies back. The only problem was that he had ‘lost’ three of them!!! After wasting almost a month while he tried to find them, I finally opted to accept his offer of trading me his ‘ninja sword’ for them. Live and learn. I feel like I got screwed for giving the guy the title back to his boat. At least I got the sword and 57 of the rubies…At the moment, many of the rubies are with a jeweler…I am trading him some of the rubies for putting them in jewelry…but I still have some rubies up for trade and a ninja sword…the question is…what do you have? I will consider trading the rubies piecemeal and I will consider all offers…btw…all trades are final…I’ve learned my lesson.
cd