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Interested in a multi-user coin trade (aka Math Trade)?

Team 'zZZz'

By Team 'zZZz'
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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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Posted

Hi there,

 

I guess most of you are familiar with the following situation:

 

You finally see that very-special-and-wanted-by-heart coin appearing in coin trade list somewhere - but unfortunately you don't have anything that the respective trader looks for. No problem at all, if you have the contacts you can arrange some kind of circle trade.

 

But most of the time this may be not only time consuming but also you need to find the matching partners for this kind of circle trade. For a single coin this may work within an acceptable time frame - but what if there are many more coins on your *must*have*list ?inter

 

Let's stop the upcoming discussion right from the start - what about an international multi user trade, where a computer software arranges the possible maximum of trades for a given amount of offers and wants?

 

This is called a math trade - a trade form that is quite common in other areas (for example in the boardgame area, my second hobby).

 

Before I try to explain all the details about a math trade (especially with my german style english) it might be best to present two "established" links that explain the wohle thing better than I can ever do:

 

The general idea of a math trade (simply replace the term "boardgame" or "game" with "coin"):

Math trade guide

 

and of course a link to the software itself that is used to calculate the trades:

Trademaximizer

 

I have done a math trade in Germany at the beginning of this month where only a small amount of geocoin collectors participated - but we all agreed that this form of trade is quite "effective" and time saving :blink:

 

So the question I would like to ask here (as already stated above):

Are there some collectors / coin maniacs / coin trading cachers around who would like to participate in an international math trade?

 

If so, I would gladly start such a trade here (to speak more technically: to act as the host of this trade)!

 

Please feel free to ask any question that comes into your mind ... I will try to answer them all (but please excuse if there's a small delay in my answers due to the time shift, my "normal" job, my family ... and sometimes caching activities) :blink:

 

Have fun!

 

Dirk

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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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How would this work if I am willing to give 3 or 4 geocoins for the one that I want?

 

Seems that I need to go a bit into detail for answering this question.

 

Usually, it happens this way: You place all cour coins that you are willing to trade on the "offer list" - most of the time as one coin / one offer. Then you see that someone lists a coin that you are really interested in (the one-and-only-must-have-coin). After that you have three choices:

 

a) The "minimum cost" approach: Stay with your "one coin / one offer" list and include the coin you would like to hunt down in the want list of each of your coins. By doing so, you might have the chance to get the coin you want by a 1-on-1 trade (at least if the one who is offering this special coin finds something suitable for himself).

 

:blink: The "average chance" approach: Regroup those of your coins that you are willing to trade for this single coin in groups, putting for example 2 coins into a single offer. By doing so, you raise definetly a larger amount of interest. Again, for each of your offer (in this case: 2 or more coins) put your most-wanted coin in the want list.

 

c) The "all-or-nothing" approach: Regroup your offers and place all your coins that you are willing to trade for this specific coin into a single offer and state in the want list for this offer that you are only interested in this special single coin.

 

Please note that it's more or less common practice that offers are regrouped each time a highly sought after object is newly listed. This is okay as long as the "offer period" is open. At a predefined time point (known to all participants, of course!) the "offer period" closes and no new coins / new groupings are allowed. Then it's time to create the want lists for each of your offers ...

 

It may happen, that a highly sought after object (well, here: coin) is listed at the latest possible moment, so some math trade hosts offer a special "regroup offer period" in which no new coins may appear but in which all participants are allowed to handle with those "latest-moment-offers".

 

In general, it's a good advise to put rare or wanted coins right from the start on the offer list as this "forces" other participants to show their possible offers for this coin :blink:

 

Please keep in mind that this kind of trade is a no-risk-trade for all participants: If the one who's offering a rare coin finds no suitable offer for himself, he simply puts no entry into the want list for this coin (so this coin is definetly not traded). The same holds true for the one who is offering a couple of coins in a single offer: he only specifies the single coin he wants in the want list ... so either the deal can be arranged or nothing happens at all.

 

Does this answer your question?

 

Dirk

Edited by Team 'zZZz'
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wutzebear

+wutzebear

Posted
Posted

I'm sure, Team zZZz will give you a more detailed walkthrough on his next visit, so here's the short one about the first math trade.

 

We participants posted our coins to enter the trade in a local forum during a time frame of AFAIR three days. Then all offered coins were listed together (that's Team zZZz's part as moderator of this trade) and everybody got some days to send his wish-list to him (via PM or mail). When all wishes are sent, he'll analyze them using that software and post the resulting trades.

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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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Thanks everybody for the interest so far and special thanks to Thomas/Wutzebear for the short explanation!

 

Right now, there's no need to contact anybody (except to raise someones attention to this topic ;) ) or to sign up any list or something - this thread was started only to get a feeling if there's enough interest for an internation math trade.

 

Some more details from my side:

 

For the trade itself I will start a new thread especially dedicated to this trade (let's call it trade thread) - all questions and answers will be part of this thread here (so this thread can become some information resource if necessary).

 

The first post of the new thread will be for the host only, means that I will put there any relevant information as time periods, actual status, actual coin list, etc. etc. So you will nee only to read this first post to get an overview as I will update this post on a (more or less, whenever it's needed) regular basis.

 

Every participant should open a single post in the trade thread including all coins he likes to offer. Of course every participant should update hist post whenever he feels to include / withdraw a coin.

 

Reason for this is quite simple:

a.) I can take all information about offered coins from there without searching through the whole trade thread for any withdrawn coin

b.) Everybody gets an easy overview about the currently offered coins

 

When the "offer period" is finished, I will introduce a short "regroup period" where no new coins are allowed but which gives all participants the chance for example to sum up several offers into a single offer in order to respond to a rare coin :D

 

After the "regroup period" has finished, the "want list period" starts. In this period I expect every participant to send me a PM with the want list for their coins ( I will explain the details for this when it's time for it, okay?).

 

After I received all want lists I will create the input file for the Trademaximizer software, fetch it's output and post all information (input list + output) to the trade thread - and that's it. After that everybody can see which coin has to be send to whom and what he gets in return (and if someone feels a need for it he can reprocess the trade as all infos are available!).

 

So after this explanation there are some questions from my side:

 

a.) Time frames:

As I'm not that up to date with the major times that this forum is visited by all users (is it within the week or mostly at the weekends?) I would like to set the follwoing time frames:

 

- 7 days for the "offer period" (should be enough for everybody to read the trade thread), ending for example on a thursday

- 2 days for the "regroup period", which will then end on a saturday

- 7 days (or shorter) for the "want list period" (again, this should be enough for everybody to prepare and send me their want lists)

- and roughly a single day (depending on my activities ;) ) before I post the results.

 

b.) Closing times / Deadlines:

From what I see, I am (sitting in Germany) 10 hours ahead of you. As I unfortunately need and have a job to feed me and my family I am interested in closing times which are more or less suitable for me (ohhh, that selfish person over there :huh::D ). So I would suggest that we take 12:00 am (high noon) forum time as closing time for each period. Caution: Any edit of your offer / regroup posts after that time will result in banning you from this math trade ...

 

c.) Trackable vs Non-trackable:

What do you think: Should we restrict the coin offers to trackable ones? By the way: I think we all agree on unactivated coins as default? Exceptions can appear (for htf coins) ... ?

 

d.) Multiple Coin Copies:

I would suggest that everybody restricts himself to a single copy of single coin (different finishes /metals are different coins). I don't think that we would like to end up with let's say 50 copies of a regular edition coin by a single user ...

 

Okay, that's from me so far ;)

 

Don't hesitate to ask any question that comes to your mind and discuss the topics mentioned above. I will try to answer everything within a day :P

 

Have fun,

Dirk

(an upper 'Z' of Team 'zZZz')

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moscow32

+moscow32

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The concern I have is that in this particular forum we are only allowed to edit our posts for approximately 24 hours. After that, the posts get locked. That would be problematic for the extended rearranging periods available.

 

Re point C: I like non-trackables, and am in some cases willing to trade a trackable for a non-trackable. I wouldn't put a restriction on it.

 

Re point D: I'm not sure I understand. Would it be that there will only be one (for example) Antique Copper FSM coin in the whole pool? Or would it be that I can only offer one Antique Copper FSM of the several that I theoretically own, and someone else might also offer the same coin. (Was the FSM even minted in AC? No idea!)

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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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The concern I have is that in this particular forum we are only allowed to edit our posts for approximately 24 hours. After that, the posts get locked. That would be problematic for the extended rearranging periods available.

 

Thanks for the info - I stumbled about this right when you answered ... ok, I will think about it and let you know! (I see the pros and cons about this froum rule but right now I'm not _that_ happy with it)

 

Re point C: I like non-trackables, and am in some cases willing to trade a trackable for a non-trackable. I wouldn't put a restriction on it.

 

No problem with that, it was just a question from my side!

 

Re point D: I'm not sure I understand. Would it be that there will only be one (for example) Antique Copper FSM coin in the whole pool? Or would it be that I can only offer one Antique Copper FSM of the several that I theoretically own, and someone else might also offer the same coin. (Was the FSM even minted in AC? No idea!)

 

I intended to say the last: "would it be that I can only offer one Antique Copper FSM of the several that I theoretically own, and someone else might also offer the same coin. " yes, that was meant :huh:

 

Dirk

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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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okay ... after a few thoughts about the pros and cons of Google-Spreadsheets I deceided to offer both possibilities.

 

The ones of you who already have a Google account can use the Spreadsheet functions, for all others I'm taking the additional "work" to have an eye on the trade thread itself (and therefore to update the coin list on both side regularly).

 

So please watch out, I'll open the trade thread within the next 24 hours ...

 

CU in the 1. Internation Coin Math Trade thread !

 

Dirk

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3BlindEyes

+3BlindEyes

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Hi moscow32. I was glad to see your post as I've been thinking lately it'd be great to have another math trade so I asked Dirk when he was going to run

another one and he said he was quite busy but was going to run one in a few weeks. But I'm sure he won't mind if somebody else feels like running one.

I thoroughly enjoyed his last International Math Trade and I got several good trades out of it, so I'm definitely in for a 2nd run!

Now that I got the hang of it I can help anybody out who doesn't quite get it. The main thing is to remember that there's no risk to your coins.

You don't have to trade it and lose it if there's no coins that you feel are worthy to trade for your coin. Cheers, Mal

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moscow32

+moscow32

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Ok, it sounds like there is enough interest to get one of these going. I've just sent Dirk (Team zZZz) an email, just to make sure he is ok with me running a Math Trade. As soon as I hear back from him, I'll start a new thread.

 

For anyone who is interested, please check out the linked thread as well: Math Trade Linky

edit to add link to old thread, again to correct link.

Edited by moscow32
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zazth

+zazth

Posted
Posted (edited)

Ok, it sounds like there is enough interest to get one of these going. I've just sent Dirk (Team zZZz) an email, just to make sure he is ok with me running a Math Trade. As soon as I hear back from him, I'll start a new thread.

 

For anyone who is interested, please check out the linked thread as well:

 

edit to add link to old thread

 

We are in !

Edited by zazth
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Team 'zZZz'

+Team 'zZZz'

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Ok, it sounds like there is enough interest to get one of these going. I've just sent Dirk (Team zZZz) an email, just to make sure he is ok with me running a Math Trade. As soon as I hear back from him, I'll start a new thread.

 

For anyone who is interested, please check out the linked thread as well:

edit to add link to old thread

 

Hi Brady,

 

... thumbs up !!!

 

It's really great if you find the time to host the second round!!! As Mal (3BlindEyes) wrote before, I'm absolutely busy in the moment and won't find the time to host it by myself right now.

 

Count me in !!! Of course!

 

If you need any help at any time ... drop a line :D

 

I will spread the news in the german forum as there are some traders who do not read here on aregular basis.

 

And if someone please put a Rainforest V1 in the trade list ... (dedicated to me, of course!) :D

 

Cheers,

Dirk

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