Sawdust Declared Official Currency of Woodworking Forums

The three largest online woodworking forums have jointly announced that sawdust will serve as their official medium of exchange, formalizing a barter system that has existed informally for decades. Under the new system, one ounce of walnut sawdust equals ten ounces of pine sawdust, figured maple commands a 3x premium, and anyone caught passing off MDF dust as genuine hardwood sawdust faces permanent banishment. 'We've been trading in sawdust for years without acknowledging it,' said forum moderator Bill Hennessey. 'Someone posts a question about mortise and tenon joints, another member answers with a detailed tutorial, and the original poster ships them a quart bag of cherry shavings. That's commerce. We just made it official.' The exchange rate table, which runs to forty-seven pages, accounts for species, grain quality, and whether the sawdust was produced by hand tools or power tools. Hand tool shavings command a 40% premium, a fact that has been met with predictable outrage from the power tool community. 'So my table saw dust is worth less than some guy's hand plane shaving just because his is curly?' said power tool advocate Derek Simmons. 'That's species-neutral discrimination based on production methodology, and I won't stand for it.' Economists have expressed cautious interest in the system. 'It's actually more stable than several national currencies,' noted Dr. Patricia Fong of the London School of Economics. 'Sawdust has intrinsic value, finite supply, and a passionate user base that will defend its worth with alarming intensity.' The IRS has not yet indicated whether sawdust transactions will be subject to capital gains tax, though members are preemptively building concealed compartments in their workbenches.