How to use them

Shire Silver cards, like most alternative currencies, are strictly voluntary. That means anyone can accept them in trade, but they can also refuse to accept them and that's OK. Banks won't accept them for deposits, and big-box stores and chains are not likely to accept them either. You can try, and the more people who do try the better the chances, but don't be disappointed if anyone says no. Remember that people have lots of different perspectives on value.

It really shouldn't need to be stated, because the cards are so obviously not government money, but you should always be clear that Shire Silver is privately produced and has nothing to do with yucky government legal tender.

When you are trading with someone, at least for now, they're not likely to have seen the cards or at least will be unfamiliar with them. You might need to do some quick educating, but if you don't have time you might want to just put the cards back in your wallet and try them again later. Don't pester them but build up a relationship and maybe they'll come around.

It might help to make sure you're well educated yourself on the extra value that Shire Silver cards provide. Especially helpful might be understanding why Shire Silver is better than both paper dollars and traditional bullion.

You might want to let prospective merchants and trading partners know that the marketplace acceptance of Shire Silver is growing. As more people join the network and want to use our cards, they might find more customers visiting their stores.

Finding merchants

We have two different ways on this website to search for retailers or other merchants. Our map will allow you to search for real world retailers in your area, but won't include businesses that are purely online. Our list allows you to see everyone who publicly accepts it including online stores. In either case you can filter the results by business type.

In addition you might just ask around. Your friends, family, and neighbors might know people or businesses that might be willing once they've been told about it. And if you get them to sign up as a merchant, you can earn a referral fee.

Pricing

We strongly believe that our cards are significantly more valuable than traditional bullion, and our MSRP reflects that. We hope that people will choose to use that as the working trade value, and to make it easier we've put a link to the MSRP page on the back of the cards in plain text as well as a QR code that can be scanned with smart-phones. Having a consistent and known value that people can agree on will help promote acceptance.

However, we cannot and will not force anyone to use our MSRP. As stated earlier, people can disagree on value - in fact that's what makes trade possible in the first place. If you didn't value what you want to trade away less than the person you want to trade it to does, you wouldn't trade it at all, and vice-versa. When someone you'd like to trade with says they don't agree to your terms, then you can negotiate for acceptable terms or you can decide not to trade.

Here's a video that might explain this better than this text.

Other ways to use them

There's lots of other ways the cards can be used. Here's a few of the best ideas.