‘The trading that goes on is unbelievable.’

The ad was tiny and stayed in the paper only a day. But it had its charm.

“The NO CASH NEEDED way to buy,” it said. “Have something you don’t need or want? Bring it in for honest credit on any merchandise (new or near new) in the Barter Store.”

The address was on Lankershim Boulevard in that nondescript quarter where the trendy influence of Universal City gives way to the pawn shops, thrift stores and used book houses of North Hollywood.

The wording made it sound suspiciously like a second-hand store.

On the other hand, it could have been a nerve center for conglomerate trading. Bartering has recently become the fascination of big business. One trade reported recently involved $1 million in unsold television advertising time, $2.5 million in hotel accommodations and $1.25 million worth of surplus digital clock radios.

Maybe the the clock radios were being dumped in North Hollywood.

To find out, a reporter walked in on the store, unannounced.

As often happens the truth had little to do with the preconception. The store didn’t belong to either of the mismatched worlds around it. It simply stood between them, working out its own gestalt.

It had a fresh wood exterior and was decorated with a string of pendants and a sign announcing its Grand Opening.

Inside, it looked like a Montgomery Ward or a Sears compressed into a single room.

A turnstile led to an aisle flanked by sports equipment on one side and kids’ toys and bathroom sundries on the other. Beyond that were drugs, luggage, furniture, kitchen appliances, stereos, bedding and artisans’ handiwork.

There were also a few oddities, such as a 4-by-10-foot stack of photo copy paper and a Pitney Bowes copy machine.

A middle-aged man wearing a rumpled shirt and a necktie that stuck out under the collar was talking to a couple.

“The trading that goes on is unbelievable,” he said.

The woman nodded and seemed eager to give it a try. But he advised caution.

“If you try to get rich on the first one, you won’t,” he said.

Later, the man, who hesitatingly gave his name as Darrell Davis, explained the whole thing again.

He said the store belongs to a bartering company called Business Exchange. It has its headquarters in North Hollywood, just behind the store.

“We have 20,000 members, been around 20-some years,” he said. Most of its members are small-businessmen who don’t want to spend their cash, so they deal instead in goods and services.

Davis said Business Exchange opened the store about two months ago to make it easier for its members to spend their scrip and to get into retail marketing. But not exactly in the manner of a Sears or Montgomery Ward.

In this store, the medium of exchange is tricky.

You can buy with vouchers, which you get by trading something in. Or you can buy with scrip called BX, which you get by joining the Business Exchange and trading with the company. Sometimes you have to pay with a combination of scrip and cash. Of course, you can always pay with straight cash.

As an example, the Pitney Bowes copier was priced at $2,000 BX plus $749.99 cash for a total of $2,274.99. But a framed painting of a Spanish Mission, called “La Casa de Swallows,” was $175, either BX or cash.

A collection of Cristallerie de Montbronn from France was priced by item, cash only. A decanter cost $64.95.

The crystal was a wedding collection, Davis said. The couple who got them didn’t want them, so they traded them in for vouchers.

Then the phone rang. Someone wanted to trade. Davis didn’t.

“I might buy it later, but I don’t need it now,” he told the caller. “I’m just cruising on my inventory. You got anything new? . . . OK, send me one. Let me look at it. What’s your cost?”

Then the conversation got a little tense.

“I saw your clock on sale for $13.97,” Davis said. “Down at the swap meet . . . I’m not arguing with you. I’m telling you what I saw. They’re selling them all over, dirt cheap . . .It looked the same to me. I don’t know if it had quartz inside.”

Davis got off the phone.

“You can get good deals and you can get bad deals,” he said.

A browser in a business suit spoke up.

“It’s just like playing Monopoly,” he said, a grin on his round face. “Somebody wins and somebody loses. It’s a great thrill when you win. You don’t talk about it when you lose.”

Actually, in Davis’ case, it was the other way around. He freely acknowledged his disappointment with some three-man boats he bought. They didn’t sell at $89.90, scrip or cash. So he dropped the price to $69.99. Now he’s asking $49.99. That’s less than his cost, he said.

But he wouldn’t talk much about his successes.

“You don’t tell anybody about a good fishing hole, do you?” he asked.

Davis said he tries to keep his merchandise general and comprehensive, as in a real department store.

But sometimes the horse-trading instinct upsets the balance.

Right now, as evidence, most of one aisle in his store is filled with small, pink vanity boxes with white cameos on their covers. They look like Italian marble. They’re really acrylic.

“That was a trade,” Davis said. “That was bought by the pound--nine cents a pound. They were irregular or something. I think I bought 40 cases of them.”

He’s asking $1.99 each, BX or cash.

He’ll make good money if they sell.