Hindsight is a wonderful thing!

So it has been a month since I made the silly trade of the ring to the watch. After finding out the ring was worth up to £500, I now have found that the watch is on sale to £70 at one store. So overall I have mucked up.

I think the only way would be to quickly trade the watch to something easily tradeable (an iPod for example) and then try and work my way up again.

However at the start of my challenge I was always asked "When do you intend to stop the trading?" and I would answer "When it stops being fun." Well... ladies and gentlemen the fun as gone out of trading so I think I am going to give the challenge a break for a while, UNLESS I get an offer very soon (and I will consider ANY OFFERS now!)

The watch is lovely, brand new - brilliant present for your girlfriends/mums/wives! So unless I get any offers this will be my last post for a while.

Thank you all so much for following my progress and I am afraid I did not make it to a house but it was fun while it lasted!

Damn and Blast!

After the excitement of yesterday I have had some annoying news today. My jeweller expert emailed me today saying that the lady who swapped the watch with me came to see him today. She bought along the ring that I had to have it valued... apparently it was worth about £500!!! Damn and blast.

So basically what I have done is traded a £100 item for a £500 item and then traded that for a £200 item. So overall I am up but that ring could have been worth a lot more in the game.

Let's hope for a quick trade of the watch (although I have had no real offers for it yet.)

I am stupid sometimes.

The watch.

What a completely crazy day in this game of Bigger and Better. As soon as I put the adverts online for the ring I was snowed under with offers coming in! But then one came in that caught my eye.

It is a ladies Rotary watch originally worth £185. It is a really nice watch and I know that people will want this (let's hope anyway!).

So after only 2 hours with the ring, I now have a watch. It is brand new and still in it's box. Open to offers as per usual!

The Ring.

I am the owner of a 9 carat gold ring with 7 diamonds... cool eh?

After the article in the County Press I had a lot more interest for the bike. Offers of a couple of sofas, weight bench and a phone but none of them worked out in the end. Then a lady on Facebook messaged me about the ring. Her ex gave her the ring 3 years ago and was just sitting a draw. So the swap was perfect for her and a good swap for me as the end is now going again. We proposed the swap (see what I did there ;) ) and the rest is history!

Over a month passed with the bike and to be honest I lost the sense of fun and excitement about my challenge but now I am back!

I am looking for any offers for the ring... game on.

New interest!

The article in the County Press has really kicked things off again! Firstly a massive thankyou to the County Press, the article was great (only found 1 mistake!!) and the picture was massive.

I have got interest from some freelance journalists in Portsmouth who are going to phone me up next week for a chat. This would be incredible as that would be for the national newspapers! Also interest for the bike has risen...

I have had offers of an Xbox Kinect, a weight bench with weights along with others. The main positive from the article is that it seems the game is back underway!

Anyway I have news about my Gap Year to Malawi. I fly out on 2nd January 2012, which is only 114 days time... excited!

The Article!

I have made it to the IWCP Website and I will be in the paper on Friday!

http://iwcp.co.uk/news/news/africa-is-the-target-for-trader-david-40546.aspx

Anyone who is interested, I still have the red mountain bike.... it is a Saracen Hazzard 7005 Mountain Bike, Red/Black, 24 Speed Twistgrip Sram 3.0 gears, with disk brakes.

I am open to any offers to please email me at biggerandbetteriow@gmail.com or d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks to the County Press!!

The Isle of Wight County Press

Good news, my friends. I have had a phonecall today from the County Press and they are going to do an article on my story and it will be in next weeks paper. This is finally some good news... recently (due to results day and work) things have been quiet and there have been few offers but hopefully if I am in the County Press then surely I will get a great offer, afterall it is read by 95% of Islanders (or something silly like that.)

My interview with the IW Radio went well and it was due to be aired over the bank holiday weekend. Apparently it did make it to the radio yesterday however my blog views didn't go up at all and I had no more interest.

Over the past couple of weeks I have been thinking "what did Kyle MacDonald do?" (he is the paperclip guy)... and I think the answer is to keep belief. Yes, I have hit a wall with my trades. Yes, the excitement of it has gone slightly. But the County Press article is exactly what I need, it will generate more interest and hopefully get the ball rolling again... soon I will be back on the trade wagon again!

The latest developments...

This morning has been quite productive really! I phoned up the IW Radio and they want me to come in for a pre-recorded interview during this week, which should be a lot easier than the live interview I did for BBC Solent. Hopefully once that interviews goes out then offers will start flying in.

Also I phoned up the County Press, they seemed interested ... I mentioned the two articles on VentnorBlog and the interview on Solent and finally they liked the idea. They should be contacting me back today at some point so things are looking up!

As for offers, things are still going fairly slow. I think I want to accept the track day now, let's hope she still wants to trade it!

Please could anyone post this link on to all of your friends, if you do then it would be so helpful (views on my blog have been down in the past few days!)

The wait...

I haven't posted in a while due to results day and work but now I am back on the case of Bigger and Better things!

I am a little disappointed with the low response I have had for the bike... I thought it would go very quicky. Having said that I have had quite a few offers but no stand out ones. Someone yesterday wanted to buy the bike, he had nothing to trade with me, so I kindly said "thanks but no thanks".

The best offer so far is the track day in the Lamborghini! I really like the idea of it, my thinking is that I am not going to use the bike but if I swap for the track day and can't find a decent swap out of that then I can just use it! I wouldn't mind driving a Lambo for a bit!!

But the hunt still goes on. Trying desperately to reach more local media... let's hope!

The Actual Interview...

My interview on BBC Radio Solent, so embarrassing!

The Interview.

It is now 11:35, 15 minutes after appearing on BBC Radio Solent. I think the interview went well... tried to make a few jokes in there and played in cool. And they want me to contact then monthly or when I get a big offer, so it sounds promising. Also Alex Dyke said he had contacts at BBC South Today (the local news programme), that would be AMAZING!

However I am a little worried as they haven't plugged my blog yet which I really need. 2,000 views is good but I need lots more.

If you have any offers for the mountain bike then please email me at biggerandbetteriow@gmail.com (yes, that is a new email address!).

Cheers.

BBC Radio Solent

I got home from work last night at about 10:30, opened up my laptop to find a couple more interesting offers, after replying to them I then checked my emails. I had 1 junk message entitled "BBC Radio Solent". At this moment my heart raced... BBC Solent wanted to interview me on their mid-morning show tomorrow (which is today)!

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!

After doing a funny jig for about 2 minutes followed by 2 somersaults (maybe exaggerating about the somersaults)... I replied very calmly and told the lady that would be great.

So today at 11:15 I will be on BBC Radio Solent (96.1 FM and 103.8 FM). Tune in!!

I have had a few good offers for the bike but I am going to hold out for a while. The girl who offered me the broken cooker earlier in the "game" has offered me a track day in a Lamborghini, which is worth about £99 but I would LOVE it for myself (so tempted!). Also my mate made me an interesting offer of a website as he is a webdesigner. He would set up a 3 page website, including domain name, design and hosting in the package. He reckons it's worth £250 but it would be tricky to swap on...

So I am now waiting to appear on the radio and see what interest that brings in. Remember 11:15 BBC Radio Solent.

The Mountain Bike.

In the end, the deal fell through for the projector which is a shame because I would have actually found a use for it myself before I swapped it on.

However a guy from Cowes phoned up with interest for the netbook... he had a couple of things to offer, a "police watch" or a mountain bike (I don't know much about bikes by the way!). So once the deal fell through my brother and I drove to Cowes to have a look at the bike. I took him so there would be a second opinion of the bike. We spoke to the boys mother and she seemed very interested in my story and wanted her son to have a go himself. So we shook hands, I handed over the netbook and walked down the road with the bike.

After some kerfuffle with getting the bike on the car it is now at my house. The bike is a>Saracen Hazzard 7005 Mountain Bike, Red/Black, 24 Speed Twistgrip Sram 3.0 gears with brake disks. I know it is around 2 years old and was about £600 brand new, worth about £100 - £150. I am now open for offers for the bike. If anyone is interested in this lovely red, shiny thing then please contact me on d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk!

The fame.

I was recognised in Tesco by a customer, she asked if I was the "paperclip man". Apparently she read about me on Ventnor Blog... so I am no longer "Dave from the Dave Show" but the "paperclip man".

Hopefully the deal with the projector will go ahead tomorrow.

That is all...

The next swap is confirmed!

I have confirmed the next swap! Finally. I had an email from a lady who saw my advert on WightBay...

Hi Dave,
I think I might have just the thing to trade - a projector.

http://epsonpowerlite.com/epson-powerlite-s3-multimedia-projector.
It recently had a new bulb which cost £200 alone!! Have wanted a net book for ages so I would love it if you are up for the swap. I think you should get loads of interest in swapping the projector for something even better as it's perfect for gamers or film buffs etc. Email me back if you're interested. Only thing I don't have is the remote as it was lost in a house move but you don't need it as all navigational buttons are on top of the projector,
Best Regards

Katy

After a few emails we have confirmed the deal but due to work we can't trade until Saturday. But this deal is great, she wants the netbook and the projector gets a new home finally. I don't think I will get lots of offers for the projector as it is quite a niche item however if a person is interested then I think they will offer me something brilliant.

I have already had interest from my friend who is a geek with all these things... so hopefully this is the swap that will help me progress in my challenge.

Although I don't have the projector if you are interested in it then please email me at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk

Cheers

The frustrations.

I traded the netbook on Monday afternoon and so far offers coming in have been quite slow. I expected there to be huge number of offers coming in but I have been disappointed.

Also I have emailed Vectis Radio and the IW Radio but I have had no reply... looks like I need to trade up further before they will do an feature on me. So things here are slightly dull at the moment and I need things to hurry up.

However having said this, there has been so positives. I have received a few offers including a BB gun - but this would be very hard to trade on I feel. An 8GB iPod Nano... this offer is okay but quite similar in value to the netbook. A lady on WightBay offered me an A reg Merecedes which would be okay but I haven't seen any pictures of it yet.

There is one offer that has caught my eye... it is from a lady in Ryde for a sofa and chair (http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/6288864.htm but in red). It is worth about £200 brand new and I think it looks very nice. My dad is a furniture salesman so I am going to wait for his opinion on it before I accept, but it is definitely bigger than the netbook ;)

The other positive is that I have reached 1,000 views on my blog. I have done this in 9 days which I think is very impressive. Let's hope that continues.

Remember if you want to get in contact with me email d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk (I may make a new email especially for this!)

The Media.

Exciting news! I have been featured on VentnorBlog which I am very proud of. They are a huge website gaining 100,000 views a month and I am on it!

http://ventnorblog.com/2011/08/09/david-lewis-bigger-and-better-project-inspired-by-red-paperclip-idea/

Also I have emailed the IW Radio to see if I can be featured on there, that would give me a lot more media courage and hopefully see the offers roll in. Next step would be the County Press after that... Facebook is brilliant for this sort of thing but only appeals to a younger audience. If I was to be in the County Press or on the radio then a lot of older people would hear about me (not stereotyping IW Radio listeners at all ;) )

Also, interesting, I was added on Facebook by a freelance journalist who worked for The Sun for 15 years. He regularly gets articles into the national papers and would be interested in reporting my story once I get up to a big thing.

Again, thankyou so much to everyone interested in my "game", this has gone so incredibly well at the moment. Also a big thankyou to VentnorBlog!

The Netbook.

I HAVE A NETBOOK! I have swapped it for the chain and bracelet today and I have the netbook. My "expert" friend says he reckons it's worth about £150 so I am expecting good trades from it.

After already being offered a camcorder for it I am now excited to see what people offer me. I think soon it maybe time to hit the media with this story... Isle of Wight Radio would be interested and maybe the County Press - then hopefully the offers would flood in.

Any offers for the netbook then email me at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk

The first set-back.

The meeting place had been arranged and I was going to swap the chain for the netbook today at 6pm. But then I have a Facebook message earlier today saying that there was a problem. The ladies laptop wasn't working properly so she still needed the netbook for the time-being. This is so frustrating but I am hopeful the deal can be made in the next few days... after all there is no rush and I think the netbook is a perfect offer.

I am now thinking that any decision I take will mean my story will take a completely different path. I have to be careful not to accept an offer which will lead to a dead-end.

However due to the delay in the latest deal there is still time to offer for the chain and bracelet. (18" and 8" both solid silver).

Hopefully soon I will create enough coverage to make it into the County Press or on IOW Radio - that would be awesome!

The AMAZING offers!

I made the deal for the chain about 5 hours ago and it's been a crazy 5 hours since. I have been snowed under with offers from all types of people.

A George foreman grill, a Nintendo 64 (with box), a manual typewriter, a load of clothes, a 3 piece suite, 2 coffee machines. All of these have got me really interested and they are just incredibly good.

However... I have just received an offer of a Netbook which is worth about £150 - £200 (so a friend who is an "expert" says). This offer leaped out on me from the screen. I am a sucker for technology so an offer like this is brilliant. I have arranged to have a look at the Netbook tomorrow at 6pm in Sandown. I am so EXCITED. But literally amazed that this idea seems to be working.

I want to take this opportunity to thank all the people who have made me offers so far. They have all meant something and helped me.

If you are interested in the chain or the netbook then please email me at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk

Cheers!

The Chain and Bracelet.

So yesterday I had an offer for the boots of a chain and bracelet from a jeweller in Ryde that wants to remain nameless! An 18" chain and 8" bracelet... both solid silver and hallmarked. This offer was AMAZING! I quickly googled them and found a similar chain and bracelet on eBay for £100. So basically I bit his hand off before he realised the boots weren't his size!

I now have the chain and bracelet sat next to me. It's quite a weird feeling knowing that I have something worth so much from a rubbish pair of sunglasses. This game has been brilliant so far.

I have no idea what offers I am going to get for the bracelet and chain so I suppose I better kick back and watch the offers roll in eh?

If you want to offer me anything for the chain and bracelet then please email me at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk thanks!

The New Offers...

Okay so after a day of the boots being advertised online I have a couple of new offers to go along with the guitar and the broken cooker.

A very nice lady offered me a juicer but I don't know much about it other than it came from Tesco. I don't know how much it would be worth. However another woman has said that if I get the juicer then she will offer me a Netgear Router, which is probably worth quite a lot but I'm not sure how easy it would be to trade on further.

Then, just a few minutes ago someone else has offered me a DVD player. Apparently it cost around £20 new and still works fine. This leaves me in a dilemma, a DVD player is a set up but nowadays they are quite cheap... but she did express a good interest in the boots so there maybe a deal done there.

After a day or so I have received more offers... some pretty good ones too! My friends mum has offered me an old washing machine which is a lot bigger than the boots. However I'm not too sure about them because I don't know what the demand for old washing machines is on the Island plus would people really want to trade for one? Also a man from Wootton has just made an offer of a man's silver 18" chain and matching 8" bracelet, apparently he reckons it could be worth £75 and he is a jeweller. This is a great offer I think.

At the moment my choice is between the juicer and the chain & bracelet. I will be making my decision by tomorrow I should think!

If you want to offer anything for the boots then please feel free to email me with any deal at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks

The Boots Deal

The deal is done. I now have a pair of pink cowboy boots - and very nice they are too. After getting lost in Cowes many times I eventually found the right house and shook hands with the lady with the boots. I'm not too sure what use she has of an Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery, but I'm sure she will love it.

Anyway the boots are with me now, I have put an advert on Wightbay and Facebook and waiting for the replies to roll in. I have an offer of a broken cooker - this is certainly bigger but is it better? What could I swap for a broken cooker? Who would want it? I also have an offer from a very nice lady of an old guitar but she said "it's not a particularly good guitar, quite old and definitely a cheap make, but still in good condition", so I'm not sure about the guitar - whether it is any better than the boots?

So I suppose I just have to wait and see now...

If you fancy making me an offer for these lovely pair of pink cowboy boots then please email me at d-a-v-i-d@hotmail.co.uk thanks!

The Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery

This is going to be my 3rd post in a number of hours but I am going to take you right up to date...

I came home that night with my amazing swap. I had the Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery! I put it down in my room for the night and went to bed. In truth I forgot about it the next day and was reminded by Ian to post the advert on Wightbay again.So today I added the advert to Wightbay, along with a description of what I was doing... after a couple of hours I had very little views on my advert so I had to think of a new way of advertising. And then I saw the perfect opportunity, Facebook.

I had recently seen a "Wightbay" for Facebook so I joined the group and started advertising my Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery. At first it was seen as a joke but then suddenly I had an offer that caught my eye. It read simply, "a pair of pink cowboy boots!". That was brilliant. They were definitely bigger and better and they were easy to trade.

So I contacted the woman who offered me the pink cowboy boots and explained my story further. We then agreed to meet this Wednesday to do the trade. This game of mine is actually working!!

However things got better still tonight. After the offer of the cowboy boots another lady posted, "We got an old cooker you're welcome to have? Only one ring works but could trade as scrap metal? :)" A COOKER! A BLOODY COOKER! I don't care if it's broken it's still a cooker. So we have half arranged to swap the cooker for the boots.

And that brings you up to date with the challenge. It has been a very productive evening, I will update this once I have traded the book!

The Sunglasses

The sunglasses weren't great at all... they cost about £5 6 years ago and could only just fit me. They were blue tinted and looked naff. This was the perfect place to start my game.

I put the advert on Wightbay with a picture of them, trying to explain what I was doing. The advert was picking up a lot of views but no comments and no offers.

But then I had an email, from my friend Ian. He had offered me a copy of the Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery... this was definitely a step up from the sunglasses but they would be pretty hard to swap on. Also I didn't want to accept an offer from my friend as I felt this was cheating.

However after a week of no more offers I decided that I would accept his offer of the Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery and drove up to his house. He looked at the sunglasses and wondered why he was trading his beloved copy of the Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery for these rubbish sunglasses... however he agreed to the swap and the deal was done. (Picture coming soon!)

I know have something bigger and better than the sunglasses! I now have the Encyclopaedia of Tractors and Farm Machinery. What now...

The Idea

I was given the book "One Red Paperclip" for Christmas and fell in love with Kyle MacDonald's idea of trading up from something small to something bigger and better.

Once my A-Levels were out the way I decided that I was going to have a go at the challenge. So on one boring afternoon I picked up the nearest object, this was going to be the object!

It was a pair of children's sports sunglasses. Now the game has started...