‘It’s a tiny bit of joy!’ How trinket swapping is making the world a happier place, one china sheep at a time
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2026/may/07/how-trinketcore-is-bringing-joy-in-turbulent-timesWhat’s so life-affirming about collecting and trading miniature animals, keyrings, stickers and pins? We visit one of the 1,500 trinket exchanges to find out
I’m standing, holding a thumbnail-sized glass owl, in front of a pink box filled with a boggling kaleidoscope of colours, shapes and textures. There’s a plush elephant wearing a green and pink sombrero; a rubber oval that is part doughnut with sprinkles, part frog; a bubble tea keyring; stickers and pins; a sparkly tangle of bracelets and much more. My mission? To swap my owl to experience first-hand the buzz of trading at a trinket exchange.
Boxes filled with tchotchkes that visitors exchange for their own trinkets are popping up everywhere. Emerging in the US last autumn (Philadelphia had one of the first using a ready-made electrical junction box, a popular format), they’re a new iteration of a phenomenon that started with Little Free Libraries and diversified during the pandemic into myriad neighbourhood installations.
Continue reading...