Paperclip Trading

[Blubberjack]

For those of you who have heard of Paperclip Trading, you already know what it is. For those of you who have never heard of it, here's a summary: One person starts with a piece of junk, like a Rainbow Dung, and keeps trading for something slightly more expensive until they get an item like a paint brush or a morphing potion. I am deciding to do some of my own, and I'd gladly appreciate it if you all would help me out. Here's a link to all my lots: http://www.neopets.com/island/tradingpost.phtml?type=browse&criteria=owner&search_string=elmomax

[leverhelven]

Be careful, you're breaking the rules with the wording on your trade. Taken from this Editorial:

 

"There is a huge debate gong on in the Help Chat surrounding the issue of paper clip trades. If you don't know, a paper clip trade is where a user starts with 1 piece of junk and trades it repeatedly for a better item each time. Often in the wishlist it will say something like "Paper clip trade: offer one item only." Are these or are these not against the rules? ~futurevet89

As long as they aren't spamming the trade or begging, with things such as "Paper clip trade, only offer something worth more!" or "Please help me with my paper clip trade!" it seems fine enough to us."

[Blubberjack]

So is "please" against the rules?

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[Deltacow]

No offense,but I honestly am against the idea of paperclip trading.

My reasons are:

1.You're trying to trade something that is worth 1 np for something that is like worth more than 1 million times its price with no work involved.

2.There are thousands of people who work hard and save up for their goals while somebody else managed to trade a jelly for a stealthy PB in 5 days.

3.Its plain unfair.

There are my reasons,now if you do a paperclip trade I have nothing against you,but honestly I think you should work towards your goals :/

[Blubberjack]

Paperclip trading is not against the rules in any way, so it's totally not unfair. It's fine if you want to take the hard way for your goals, but don't hate on people who prefer not to do that. Besides, I'm not even paperclip trading for easy money, I'm mostly doing it for fun!

[Avia loves Chias]

i don't know what the original wording of it was or if you changed it, but it looks fine to me. you'll get in trouble if you go on the neoboards/neomail people and beg people to trade higher value items or outright demand that they offer something of higher value just because you have "paper clip" on it. but just having a trade and having criteria for what you want offered is not against the rules. people are free to offer what they want, and you have no obligation to accept. once you guys get into a discussion about why they should offer something better, then it'll look like you're pushing your paper clip trade.

 

and delta, there's nothing really exploitative about paper clip trades as long as they are following the rules and not forcing people to trade. in fact, whoever is trading is also getting a benefit because once they offer something of higher value, as long as the trade keeps running, they'll by default get traded something of higher value than their item. of course, there are risks involved, and if the paper clip ends, they don't get a reward. but no one is forcing anyone to join a paper clip trade, and some people actually find them fun because of the teamwork despite the risk.

[jorydan_dopeaf]

I think it's just fine, it's actually a really great idea! If you're putting in that it's a paper clip trade people realize what they are trading for, you can get stuck with items of the same value.

 

How exactly isn't that working towards a goal? You are actively trading and looking at the pricing for items. How do you know that someone worked hard for the item they traded for? Could have been a random event or prize from a daily.

 

I see nothing wrong with trading as long as you're not scamming anyone and having a good time :)

[meatfalls]

I don't really agree with Delta. I wouldn't participate in it myself, but I mean, it does take effort to be able to get a 1 np item traded up to something of actual value. It's working toward a goal, just in a different way.

[Shelley]

I used to watch this show...the name escapes me now. Maybe something like "Trade Wars" or something? I don't know, but I really enjoyed watching these people trade cheap items for items that cost higher and higher until they were able to trade for an expensive item they wanted. I admittedly tried doing this on neo once with no luck. I never knew there was a name for this type of thing or that people actually partook in this "paperclip trading" but it looks to me to be an awful lot of work. I don't see the harm in it, unless like the editorial says, you're begging. So good luck with your trades, it would be interesting to see what you end up with! :)

[DeepInTheMeadow]

I tried it, but didn't manage very well. It is actually really hard work and I needed to focus on more productive np methods to get the NP I wanted. It is really fun though, I look for trades instead of putting an item up for trade because in my experience not enough people are looking to buy/trade for that sort of thing. I got up to a combined value(because I offered on some trades with several items) of 1,100np

[fullonparanoid]

I've never been involved in a paperclip trade from either end...but I think the idea of it is fun.

 

The original 'One Red Paperclip' story is pretty neat. The guy started with a paperclip and 14 trades later had a two-story house!

 

I don't have any problem with folks trying their hand at it...truth be told, I see it taking more time/effort than most ways of earning nps on Neo.

 

Good luck!

 

:P

[Blubberjack]

I've updated the OP with a link to all my paperclip trades. Thank you!

[mizizzy11]

No offense,but I honestly am against the idea of paperclip trading.

My reasons are:

1.You're trying to trade something that is worth 1 np for something that is like worth more than 1 million times its price with no work involved.

2.There are thousands of people who work hard and save up for their goals while somebody else managed to trade a jelly for a stealthy PB in 5 days.

3.Its plain unfair.

There are my reasons,now if you do a paperclip trade I have nothing against you,but honestly I think you should work towards your goals :/

I think a lot of work still goes into a paperclip trade.

[Wildbreeze]

No offense,but I honestly am against the idea of paperclip trading.

My reasons are:

1.You're trying to trade something that is worth 1 np for something that is like worth more than 1 million times its price with no work involved.

2.There are thousands of people who work hard and save up for their goals while somebody else managed to trade a jelly for a stealthy PB in 5 days.

3.Its plain unfair.

There are my reasons,now if you do a paperclip trade I have nothing against you,but honestly I think you should work towards your goals :/

How is that not working towards a goal? The people that do this aren't trading jellies for PBs. They're slowly trading up with more and more valuable items. That involves work and patience. It's not unfair either, since the people they're trading with would have to be satisfied with the trade.

 

I hadn't heard of this with items, but I've seen people doing it with pets--starting with a basic and slowly trading up to a dreamie. I think it's pretty cool.

[SiuKingBon]

This method is what I use regardless of what game I'm playing; Neopets, WoW, CS:GO, anything!. Doing dailies and trading up/investing in different items to eventually turn a profit. Its pretty fun and doesn't take up too much of my attention so I can do it as well as finish some assignment at the same time =D

[Mumtup]

I never see these actually working. Has anyone ever been successful?

[just_shaye]

Its an interesting concept. Has anyone gotten any decent items as a result?

[siniri]

Way back when the One Red Paperclip experiment happened, someone on a different forum decided to emulate the experiment (before the editorial came out -- I think it was the very first Neopets paperclip trade, though of course I can't be 100% sure). He tracked it on a petpage. He didn't advertise it on the Neoboards, but he did keep up with it in a thread on that other forum and via the petpage -- which was fairly entertaining. The offers mostly increased the value of his item by about 1-5k (and then no more than 5-10% as he got higher). Just like ORPC, he documented who offered what, so that made people want to participate.

 

I actually started a "control" chain where I started with the same item as him, but did not indicate in my trades what I was doing. I can't remember the exact item he started with, but it was a black meowclops school supply worth about 1k, I think? It took a few more trades for me to increase value the way he did, and I accepted a few HTS that I was able to get rid of by advertising, but I was still able to grow my black meowclops item into something worth about 50k eventually, if I remember correctly.

 

I can't remember where the actual paperclip trade ended... I can't remember if he had an end goal in mind, or if it just fizzled... but it does work. And it does take some effort. Now that they're more common, I'm not sure they get quite the buzz that first one did (he went a lot less time between trades than I did in my control experiment), but you might get lucky.