In a post-TEOTWAWKI world
just about everyone realizes that paper money will become useless (unless
you can get enough to use as insulation
for your house) and there has been much discussion of gold, silver
and other items for barter in these pages. I have devoted a
great deal of thought to this subject and I would like to share a few
of my ideas on the subject with you. I’m going to try to be fairly
short on details here in order to keep the length of the article manageable.
Keep in mind that what I am discussing here are trade goods and
not items for personal use. You should always get the best supplies
and
equipment
you can
afford for your own use, but trade items are an investment, and like
all investments you need to minimize your outlay and maximize your
profit. For barter, why buy a Craftsman socket-set when you
can get three Chinese made socket-sets from Harbor Freight for the
same money?
Places
to
obtain trade goods are yard and garage sales, pawnshops, resale shops,
flea markets, discount stores and dollar stores. Of course, don’t
buy complete junk but a mediocre tool is much better than no tool at
all.
GUNS AND AMMO
First, I would tend to keep the trading in weapons and ammo to friends
and neighbors, no sense arming the opposition. That said, a good bolt-action
rifle would be a serious item for trade. A friend of mine is a Mosin-Nagant
nut and he bought a half-dozen “Gunsmith Specials” with
cracked stocks and messed up finishes for about $20 a piece. A few
weeks and around a hundred bucks in parts later (he managed to repair
all but two of the stocks) he had six fully functional rifles which
he has socked away with a 700+ round sealed tin of ammo (each with
a can-opener). Another guy that I know has four Romanian .22 Long Rifle
bolt-actions stored away. At my suggestion they both coated these in
DuraCoat which
is a high-tech spray-on finish that can be applied with an airbrush,
requires no heat curing and can even be applied to wood and plastics.
Used .22 rifles would also be a good trade item, but I prefer to avoid
the ones with tube magazines, if they break [e.g. the magazine tube
is dented] they are pretty well impossible to repair, and good luck
finding a replacement.
The best most of us can do is probably to collect parts and tools to
repair our own firearms and perhaps some of the more common weapons
(Model 1911s, AR-15s, AKs, etc.) as well as cleaning
kits, bore solvent, broken case extractors, and repair items for wooden
stocks (Acraglas is a good one). Magazines, speed loaders and stripper
clips for the more common weapons might be a good choice as well.
I do not believe in stocking ammunition which I don’t use, I
have enough trouble buying and storing the ammunition I do use. Instead
I recommend getting into reloading on a very serious basis and get
the equipment to both cast and swage bullets. Casting is the most common
method for making bullets and will work well. Swaging involves producing
bullets using pressure as opposed to heat and allows you to make jacketed
bullets which allows normal velocities to be obtained, while simple
unjacketed cast bullets must use low-velocities to reduce leading of
the barrel. Search for “Bullet Swaging” and you can find
a host of sites on the subject. It is an expensive method of production,
but with the equipment and large amounts of powder and primers you
can supply the neighbors and yourself with far more ammunition than
you could ever stockpile. A few caveats on this though;
Select your powders to provide the widest possible selection of calibers
and loadings using the least amount of powder for each, you have to
stretch your supplies as far as possible.
Steel casings can be reloaded but they will eat-up your dies.
Berdan primers can be removed and replaced by boxer primers, however
you must ream out the primer pocket as there will be a small post in
the primer pocket which must be removed or the boxer primers will fail
to seat and may fire if you try. Here is a
good site on decapping Berdan primers.[JWR Adds: Rather than drilling out Berdan case primer anvils--which can be tricky--I recommend stocking up on Berdan primers from a supplier such as The Old Western Scrounger.]
BOOKS
Books are portable knowledge and can either be lent out or simply read,
your private library can be a profit making enterprise.
I would start with the general knowledge books, Late 19th and early
20th century encyclopedias, “Connections” by James
Burke and the Foxfire book series are a good place to start.
Then go for the more specific information like veterinary medicine,
animal husbandry,
beekeeping,
gardening, small engine repair, carpentry, medicine (The Physician's
desk Reference (PDR), Gray’s
Anatomy, “Where there is no doctor/dentist, etc.), psychology,
chemistry, glass blowing, metallurgy, and blacksmithing. Frankly just
about anything you can think of can
be valuable to someone, and don’t skip history, philosophy, mathematics,
and spelling textbooks. As a survivalist, you should be planning to
give your children and grandchildren the tools they need to rebuild,
not merely consigning them to the short hard life of pre-industrial
farming and drudgery. Don’t forget the fiction either (fun reading
is often the gateway to a lifetime habit), from the classics by Defoe
and Stevenson to the more contemporary works of Heinlein, Norton, Piper,
Pournelle, and Ing (yes I mean the science fiction writers, it is the
writing of hope for the future and Robert Heinlein, Jerry Pournelle,
and Dean Ing have wonderful books about survival which any survivalist
can appreciate,
even when they are set in futures and planets that never existed).
If you have access to a high-volume printer you should visit Project
Gutenberg it is one of the largest collections of public domain writings
in the world with over 19,000 works on just about every subject imaginable
available for free downloading (P.S. I understand that Xerox copies
will last much longer than most computer printer copies).
Don’t forget pencils (better than pens over the years and cheaper
in bulk), paper, erasers, protractors, rulers, notebooks and other
supplies for education, record keeping, drafting and planning.
TOOLS
Always get the best tools you can afford for yourself, but always remember
that a mediocre tool is better than no tool at all.
Socket sets, pocket multi-tools, wrench sets, drill bits, chisels (wood
and metal working), bit-and-brace, hand drills (manual), files, Allen
wrenches, screwdrivers, driver bits (with manual drivers), cutters
(side-cutters, end-cutters, snips), bunches of clamps, hammers (of
all sizes), pry-bars, shovels, rakes (the heavy gardening type), hoes,
sickles, scythes, handsaws (hacksaws, crosscuts, etc.), axes, and just
about anything else you can think of. Don’t forget specialty
tools either, eye-glass repair kits are cheap, watch making and gunsmithing
tools can often be obtained on eBay and others places and even if
you can’t use them others might and you can trade them for training
or just future work.
Don’t forget things like oil and grease for maintaining and storing
your tools. A few gallons of WD-40, light machine oil or big tubs of
quality grease (I prefer graphite grease) will be incredibly valuable
in a post-petroleum society.
KNIVES
I used to disregard knives as barter items, as I come from a family
where no man was dressed without his pocketknife and just about any
other knife you could wish for was in a drawer somewhere, but alas,
most people today have little more than some plastic-handled Chinese
kitchen knives.
Anza Knives has some of the least expensive and best custom knives you will find
anywhere, I’ve owned and used them for years and I highly recommend them,
both for you and for trade. From 1” skinners to big kitchen knives these
fixed blades will outlast your grandkids. The one issue I have is the high-carbon
blades then to rust at the slightest excuse, coat them with DuraCoat (see, guns
and ammo).
For folding knives (as well as fixed blades for those with good skills) go see
KnifeKits.com, I’ve
gotten several of their folder kits to give out as Christmas presents and everyone
has liked them. All you really need is some Torx
bit drivers to put them together but if you wish [with a buffing wheel] you can
pimp
these
puppies
into
some real nice keepsakes. Knife kits also sells tools and supplies for working
on projects like these.
Don’t forget about making your own blades from scratch either, big lawn
mower blades make great machetes and would no doubt work for plow blades, and
steel blanks of D2, 1095, A2 and other excellent blade steels can be gotten at
reasonable cost today but will be unobtainable in the post-collapse era. Don’t
forget sharpening supplies, I get Laskey-type sharpeners as well as diamond hones
(rod and flat style) from an industrial supply company near my home for less
than normal retail. I would also mention that I recommend using peanut oil (not
vegetable oil which will go rancid) on knives as many mineral oils will contaminate
the blade and make it unsuitable for cutting anything you plan to eat.
Don’t forget razor knives, utility knives, and razor blades.
FIRE STARTING
This has been one of my personal bug-a-boos since I first read Pat Frank’s
classic survivalist book “Alas Babylon”. I have noticed that most
survivalists tend to buy huge amounts of waterproof and strike-anywhere matches
as well as fire-starters like ‘Blast-Match’, which is fine, keep
them for yourself (especially as new strike-anywhere types go dead after six
months). For trading I buy cheap disposable lighters and book matches as well
as wicks and flints for Zippo lighters. In fact I have several cheap plastic
matchboxes (pseudo-military style) filled with 150 flints, 3 wicks and 3 huge
cosmetic cotton-balls (for repacking the lighters) as Zippo support kits. I have
a half-dozen or so Zippos I’ve picked up at yards sales over the years,
which I plan to trade as I have three new-in-box for my use, along with the one
in my pocket. P.S. If you switch from fluid to gasoline (or vice-versa) in a
Zippo, you must repack the cotton filling.
LIGHTING
Don’t buy candles, most candles are made for pretty, not for light and “Survival” candles
are more expensive though generally not much better. Instead, get some pure cotton
string a little thicker than a tea-bag string (which I actually use for my survival
kit candles), bulk paraffin wax and get some plastic cigar tubes (I’ve
also used narrow plastic bottles, but be sure that all the previous contents
are cleaned out). Drill a hole in the tip a little bigger than your wick and
run the wick through and tie it to a pencil or stick and then tie the other end
in a knot (which will mostly seal off your hole). You should spritz the inside
with non-stick cooking spray (or vegetable oil and a spray bottle) to keep the
wax from sticking and then pour in your melted wax. I use a coffee-can 1/3 full
of water and about 1⁄2 full of wax to keep from messing up a cooking pot
and to keep the wax from burning. I use a plastic measuring cup to dip out my
wax. This will work with beeswax as well.
I also have bought a bunch of cheap LED flashlights (the batteries last longer
than standard bulb flashlights), lamp wicks and flashlight bulbs. I looking for
the price to come down on the new magnet powered flashlights too, these would
be useful when the batteries go bye-bye.
EYEGLASSES
Inexpensive UV protective
sunglasses (especially for those blue-eyed, blonde types who tend to get cataracts),
dime-store reading glasses (make sure to write
the Rx number on the case), safety glasses and welding glasses will all be good
items for trade. I myself have gotten several pairs of Gargoyles and Oakleys
at yard sales which I paid to have factory refinished for far less than the retail
price.
CLOTHING
I buy used work uniforms from an industrial surplus house in my area, these are
excellent work clothes and the material is much like military BDUs.
I’ve
bought pants and shirt sets for under $5, and they sell painter’s smocks
(I dyed one brown and made my ghillie
suit with it and a pair of the pants),
jump suits, hats, gloves and winter coats and boots.
I also buy socks and underwear (irregulars can be gotten very cheap), handkerchiefs,
patch material, sewing needles (get a variety of sizes, so-called ‘Doll’ needles
work for leather work), boot and shoe laces, snaps and snap tools, buttons, thread,
straight pins, tailors chalk, and sewing machine needles (older model electric
machines with the manual knobs could be converted to foot treadles). While you
are at it you might find irregular pantyhose and knee-highs, they make excellent
strainers, the reduce chafing when riding on horseback (an equestrian I know
told me that one) and if you are prone to leg swelling they help with that too.
MEDICAL SUPPLIES
Stick to the non-perishables for trade. Bandages, hot water bottles (with attachments)
sterile pads, slings, splints, support bandages, tweezers, hemostats, sutures
and suture needles, clamps, stethoscopes, blood-pressure cuffs, thermometers,
scalpels and blades, and non-disposable syringes and needles. Iodine, aloe, mercurochrome,
betadine, “Bag Balm” (an antiseptic lotion), dental floss (use baking
soda instead of toothpaste) and such could be stored in quantity as well. And
don’t forget the feminine hygiene products, nothing says I love you to
the womenfolk like a couple cases of these puppies, plus tampons can be used
to pack wounds and pads make good dressings (and nifty padding for pack straps).
Once again, just because you can’t use an item doesn’t mean others
won’t be able too.
SUNDRIES
Batteries (buy brand names in the big ‘Industrial’ packs and/or rechargeable
ones, keep the charger yourself and trade live for dead), belt buckles, pots
and pans, buckets, mops and mop heads, Pyrex measuring cups, measuring spoons,
metal mixing bowls, baking sheets, roasting pans, pressure cookers (good for
sterilizing as well as cooking), bread and cake pans, candy thermometers, cleaning
brushes (various, with both natural and artificial bristles not to mention metal
brushes), canning jars with seals and lids (lots and lots of seals and lids)
as well as canning baskets and pots, mechanical watches (I wear an Invicta Model
8926 myself), baby food jars (excellent for storage), thermos bottles, can openers
(a bucket load of military key ring "P-38" can openers will only cost
a few bucks),
potato
peelers,
tooth brushes, spray bottles, et cetera.
I could go on, but I think you have a good start here. The main thing is to think
about what people use everyday that they won’t have in a post-collapse
world and either get some of them now, or figure out a replacement. Check the
Internet, check the phonebook and the newspapers, find the outlet and surplus
stores in your area, get on mailing lists, and most of all shop! Don’t
just dash in and out, go in and look around and think about what can be useful.
Remember your first and best resource is that thing behind your ears, use it
often and well.