Quoted from beelzeboob:So I see For Trade ads quite a bit, and I'm wondering what the psychology is behind it. On two occasions, I've wanted a machine that somebody was only looking to trade (I don't have enough machines to want to trade anything at this point). Both people stuck to their guns on the trade rather than selling to me outright.
But...why?
Let's take two machines that are desirable and priced about the same: Shadow and Congo. (This is purely hypothetical, BTW.) If somebody wants to trade a Shadow for a Congo (or vice-versa), and they can't find somebody to do the trade rather quickly, why wouldn't the person just sell The Shadow outright and take the money to make an offer for somebody else's Congo? Or just do that from the outset rather than waiting forever for the right person to come along?
I'm not understanding why people are averse to selling and buying instead of just trading.
Can anyone enlighten me?
It's a challenge to try and enlighten you, but I will try! 
Pretty easy actually. I might own a pin that I really love. It might be a high demand pin. There might be another high demand pin out there that I want more than the high demand pin that I currently own.
You might have someone out there who owns the high demand pin that you really want, but they really don't plan on selling it. Yet, you also happen to have a high demand pin that they want...more than the high demand pin that they own.
For example, when I was first trying to get a Tron LE back in my lineup a few years ago, I wasn't able to find one for sale. So what did I do? I put up my Monster Bash as "Trade bait".
Trade bait is the operative term here.
Trade bait means putting up a desirable pin for trade for a specific title, in order to get someone to part with a pin that they otherwise would not have parted with just for cash.
