I have pondered the idea about trading lamps with and buying lamps from other members, but I have been put off by the whole process of paying someone and giving them my address.
If you have bought, sold, or traded lamps with other members, please tell me how you do it and if I should be concerned about doing it.

BTW I have traded lamps with another member, but that was only because they were in town near where I live.

I have traded lamps with other collectors locally and out of state.  And there lot collectors in Texas but they are far apart
 From each other as Texas is large state as it self.   I have collector from east coast relayed me lamps to Texas and vise versa  return trade to that collector as well.  There two collector
 That have family in Texas.  Two I went on long road trip to distribute 50 T17 fixtures from Ohio to to the midwest collectors
 And on my way back to Texas.   And I traded locally as well .
 Rest is expensive mail order Trades and risk of broken lamps
   What needs to happen now days since lamp sources about dry
 Up in few years is to do a collectors meet like how they do it in the UK.

We've done trades with a lot of members here. If you're not comfortable with giving your address, then there isn't really a great deal you can do, except to maybe rent a PO box, but they don't come cheap.

You've just got to weigh up your options; either you trust someone enough to tell them your address, or you don't. Nobody else can make that decision for you.

Meeting people is all very well if you're close to them, but we're hundreds of miles from anybody up here in the north of Scotland, so it's a major trip if we want to see anybody.

I would not hesitate to make trades with the majority of members on Lighting-Gallery.  It’s a natural part of collecting anything that we all end up with duplicates of certain items, and also never have all the items we search for.  One of the great things about this community is that we all have the same interest and also have the possibility to help each other out for much lower costs than buying from commercial vendors.

The best trades for me are those where there is no financial element : just work out a deal where you are happy to give something away in exchange for something else.  That approach should eliminate half of your fears.  Regarding exchange of addresses, after 30 years of trading lamps I can say that I never had a single bad experience.  Most collectors are like-minded people who may hope to satisfy you such that future trades over many years will be possible.  So I would much rather share my address with a fellow lighting enthusiast than any mail order or other company that has basically zero interest in protecting our privacy.

I've done three in person trades/purchases and a few US/international trades and every time it was a pretty good experience. TBH unless you're getting everything shipped to a PO box, when you buy stuff off eBay, you're still giving your address to a random person/business.

 I've bought from and sold to members of this site from literally all over the world !! NO issues whatsoever !

 As for trades , I've also done a number of them . Some in person , and some by mail . The in person trades went great and all but ONE of the trades by mail went fine ! As for the one that went wrong ( YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE !!    ) I know for next time !   In short , 99.5 % of my buy/sell/trades have been flawless !

 If you're not comfortable with a deal , don't do it !

Thanks everybody. I am not too uncomfortable with addresses, but it is getting the $£€ to the person for the item and/or the shipping that is a bit difficult. What service do you think I should use?

Paypal is what we usually use.

Thanks.

P.S. Crazy ladies, sometime would you be willing to trade with me? Would you trade a SOX lamp for an American meter and its socket?

Possibly, but not sure, getting SOX lamps across the pond has become a bit difficult due to shipping problems, but I'll look into it. It would have to be a small one, say 18W, as anything bigger would be rather expensive to ship. I'll look into it and let you know.

Hmm, I didn't have any problems shipping out a SOX lamp (with fixture) in late 2021, although I suppose the rules around that might have changed recently. Granted I think I put "light fixture" on the customs slip.

Shipping out and in can be different on either side of the water, but I'll check. An 18W lamp shouldn't be that hard, watch this space..! 

I would probably label the meter something like "electric energy meter" that is simple for the customs people to understand.

I have also bought, sold, and traded both in-person and online with members of L-G and various Facebook lighting enthusiast groups. Really can't say I've had a bad experience. Deals with strangers on FB Marketplace, etc. have been hit or miss, but still overwhelmingly positive.

I do prefer to sell and trade in-person, because I find packing and shipping to be a hassle, and if you're doing a trade that involves shipping, who wants to pay shipping both ways? If you split it evenly, then both parties lose money.

If you're not comfortable giving out your address, you can meet a seller at their home if you're fairly close (which you might find even more uncomfortable) or better yet, meet in a public place. I actually like meeting sellers at their homes if they invite me, because I often get to see other stuff they have that they might not have mentioned before. This is especially true with collectors.

Regarding payment, for online transactions, I've used PayPal, Facebook Pay, CashApp, money orders, and even cash in an envelope (though the latter is risky because it can get stolen fairly easily). Venmo is another very popular payment platform, and it's owned by PayPal. Keep in mind that some of the online platforms have a "for goods or services" payment option that offers the buyer purchase protection, and in turn, charges the seller a fee of roughly 3% so they don't receive the full amount of the sale. (For what it's worth, in the US, if you receive $600 or more in a calendar year from these "goods or services" payments, that is considered reportable income by the IRS, so you can be taxed on it.)

For in-person deals, cash is king. Trades that don't involve money at all are great too.

The problem here is that the nearest member of LG to us lives over 100 miles away, the nearest next one over 200. We're a little bit out of the way here