Keycap trading.

[kNyneWest]

I've been thinking quite a bit about this lately and I decided that I should make a post.  Most people on this sub I'm assuming have extra keycaps laying around that they don't use, hell most people on here have multiple keyboards so I wouldn't be surprised if they had 1000+ extra keycaps.  For me, I use a Poker II and I've only bought 2 more sets for it, leaving me with about 200 extra keys that I literally don't even need (FN keys, numpad etc).  I would LOVE to be able to trade these with other people because I'm doing nothing with them and they're pretty cool caps (doubleshot, 2 colors).

My idea is that someone with the resources, creates a keycap "bank", preferably someone who already has a lot of keycaps to begin with, someone who manufactures them.  Essentially, people would be able to trade in their extra keycaps in exchange for other caps that people have traded in.  Caps would have a value that you can trade for, always favoring the business so they always get more caps.  If they have the resources they could sort these caps and keep track of their inventory etc.  They can even sell these keys to make a profit off of them.

Would anyone be interested in this?  Personally I feel like it would thrive.  Imagine trading in a couple hundred random keys for a few rare novelty keys! 

[billnye]

Sounds pretty interesting!

[SpAmRaY]

Why would anyone want random junk caps? I've got hundreds that are near impossible to sell.

And no one is going to trade a rare novelty key of any value for random caps.

And SP already sells their seconds and junk caps in huge crap/grab bags a few times a year.

I don't see a scenario where this would be profitable for a business and there would be a huge liability to make sure people received what they were supposed to.

There have been many key cap trading threads attempted and they all quickly get buried.

[tbc]

this is just a barter system.

and bartering is hard.  that's one of the reasons why societies use money.

what we need is an automated trade matchmaking system. (although honestly, i don't really think this is going to fix everything or otherwose be worth the effort)

[ideus]

Leftovers of key caps are part of collecting keyboards, and key sets. To trade them we can always use our WTS/WTT/WTB threads.

[SpAmRaY]

Also its usually a good idea to keep complete sets together in case you want to sell the entire set later.

[pr0ximity]

There's already a keycap based economy around here, in reality. They're called artisan caps. Clacks and Bros are basically a currency in the Classifieds.

[Computer-Lab in Basement]

I'll trade 5000 Dell rubber dome keycaps for a Clack...

[rowdy]

I'll trade 5000 Dell rubber dome keycaps for a Clack...

5000 Dell rd keycaps, that's around 50 Dell keyboards.

At, say, $5 per keyboard, that would be close to $250.

Including a bit of shipping to offset a lower cost, or maybe only 45 keyboards, and that's still around $250.

Which Clack were you thinking of?

[bueller]

Honestly I'd just love to see a artisan cap trading system where you could enter all the caps you have for trade with a photo for each and then have the ability to matchmake with people that have caps I want. The ability to do three and four way trades would be especially awesome. The only hard part would be keeping up to date with a database of all the colors and styles from each vendor.

[tbc]

i seem to remember matteo having a keycap db of some sort.  was it only for regular keys?

[Dihedral]

What would be cool is if someone brought tonnes of random but good quality caps and sold them in blind bags of 10, 50, 100 etc. That would be fun!

[rowdy]

What would be cool is if someone brought tonnes of random but good quality caps and sold them in blind bags of 10, 50, 100 etc. That would be fun!

"Good quality" would probably cost average $5 each, so a bag of 10 would be $50.  A bag of 100 would be $500.  Not many people go for those prices, especially if it was random.

[suicidal_orange]

For me, I use a Poker II and I've only bought 2 more sets for it, leaving me with about 200 extra keys that I literally don't even need (FN keys, numpad etc).  I would LOVE to be able to trade these with other people because I'm doing nothing with them and they're pretty cool caps (doubleshot, 2 colors).

I don't have any keys to trade but am picking up a JD40 soon and need some nice modifier keycaps, but it's not worth buying a whole set - would you be interested in "trading" some of your random keys for some good old fashion cash?  My main board is still stock too so some pretty numbers etc could also be good.

I'm in the UK and the offer's open to anyone, I guess you'd need to start a FS thread with pics and link it here?  Not sure on the trading rules on this board