I wouldn't feel left out. Some people just spent more money and more time to build up their collection than others. To use an analogy, we don't drive by the ferrari club events and porsche swap meets feeling left out. Our automobile threshold does not feel the need to compete with them 
. OK, enough with the analogies... it is not about being elite, or snobbish, it is more just about meeting people to trade for something you really wanted. We personally know only a small handful of the people at the swap, and we have been in BAR for going on 2 years now. We met them all at other swaps and general events. We also met a ton of other people at those same events that frankly, I would consider pretty elite, but I don't see any of them on the list for the swap. We consider ourselves pretty un-elite by comparison to a great majority of the other BAR members (and just equal to the rest) . I believe that you just joined BAR and are starting to attend events and meet people. That is the first step towards "knowing everyone"
And I take personal offense to the accusation that we personally are looking down on anyone. Just as most anyone would do, we place a value on our various corals. Some of it is due to what we paid for it, or how much we like it, or how hard it was to keep alive. Back to the anologies for a minute : If you bought a trading card for $100, and someone came up to you with one they paid $20 for and insisted to you that you trade with them for it, how would you feel ? Does that mean that you look down on the guy with the $20 trading card ? No ! it just means that they don't have anything that you are interested in trading with them for, that is all.. simple market economics. Everyone in this swap paid out hard earned cash for what they are trading, I know that we did. We sacrificed for one coral or the next. Normally these frags would command a pretty high price tag. If we were selling them to each other for high $$, would you still feel left out ? Instead of money we are using corals for currency (trading versus selling). If you really want to get some "rare" or exotic corals, there are many online and local vendors that will trade regular US currency for corals. Most of the people from the swap would be more than happy to sell you a frag of whatever you wanted, although some have waiting lists for the more desirable corals (I know that we are on one or two waiting lists for corals that we really want).
I know that BAR is about freely propogating corals amongst the community, and that is something that we do ourselves. But bear in mind that this upcoming swap is not a BAR event. Perhaps the thread and other information should have been posted in the SF Bay Area forum versus the BAR one, to have minimized the confusion. I also know that I will likely take alot of flack for this post, but we help alot of local reefers out with advice, time to help them set up tanks, troubleshoot problems, before our tank crash we were pretty free with our corals, and once they grow back out we will be once again. But I take offense when someone gets offended because maybe we don't want to included a frag of an imported acan that we spent $150 a polyp on to trade for GSP (as an example). There has to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise 1. no one will want to buy any rare corals or 2. if they do, and are unduly pressured to include them in the swaps, they will just stop attending any swaps at all or otherwise contributing to the reefing community
That is my rant, feel free to flame the heck out of me for speaking my mind.
. OK, enough with the analogies... it is not about being elite, or snobbish, it is more just about meeting people to trade for something you really wanted. We personally know only a small handful of the people at the swap, and we have been in BAR for going on 2 years now. We met them all at other swaps and general events. We also met a ton of other people at those same events that frankly, I would consider pretty elite, but I don't see any of them on the list for the swap. We consider ourselves pretty un-elite by comparison to a great majority of the other BAR members (and just equal to the rest) . I believe that you just joined BAR and are starting to attend events and meet people. That is the first step towards "knowing everyone"And I take personal offense to the accusation that we personally are looking down on anyone. Just as most anyone would do, we place a value on our various corals. Some of it is due to what we paid for it, or how much we like it, or how hard it was to keep alive
. Back to the anologies for a minute : If you bought a trading card for $100, and someone came up to you with one they paid $20 for and insisted to you that you trade with them for it, how would you feel ? Does that mean that you look down on the guy with the $20 trading card ? No ! it just means that they don't have anything that you are interested in trading with them for, that is all.. simple market economics. Everyone in this swap paid out hard earned cash for what they are trading, I know that we did. We sacrificed for one coral or the next. Normally these frags would command a pretty high price tag. If we were selling them to each other for high $$, would you still feel left out ? Instead of money we are using corals for currency (trading versus selling). If you really want to get some "rare" or exotic corals, there are many online and local vendors that will trade regular US currency for corals. Most of the people from the swap would be more than happy to sell you a frag of whatever you wanted, although some have waiting lists for the more desirable corals (I know that we are on one or two waiting lists for corals that we really want).I know that BAR is about freely propogating corals amongst the community, and that is something that we do ourselves. But bear in mind that this upcoming swap is not a BAR event. Perhaps the thread and other information should have been posted in the SF Bay Area forum versus the BAR one, to have minimized the confusion. I also know that I will likely take alot of flack for this post, but we help alot of local reefers out with advice, time to help them set up tanks, troubleshoot problems, before our tank crash we were pretty free with our corals, and once they grow back out we will be once again. But I take offense when someone gets offended because maybe we don't want to included a frag of an imported acan that we spent $150 a polyp on to trade for GSP (as an example). There has to be a line drawn somewhere, otherwise 1. no one will want to buy any rare corals or 2. if they do, and are unduly pressured to include them in the swaps, they will just stop attending any swaps at all or otherwise contributing to the reefing community
That is my rant, feel free to flame the heck out of me for speaking my mind.
zoo/paly packs
