Wow.  I post a simple question, look at the first few replies, go take a nap and then come back and see a plethora of knowledgeable replies on the topic from the bitcoin community.

As I said, wow.

This confirms me in the belief, formed over a year ago, that for some reason, bitcoin has sucked in some of the brightest people on this planet.

That having been said, however, now I REALLY think there's a bug in this wallet.  I was already aware (though not to the depth that many of the people replying to my post are, to be sure) of the age and "dust" issues... but that still doesn't explain why the fees my wallet is requesting change at every request, EVEN WHEN I'M NOT CHANGING ANYTHING ELSE.

Other data: there are only two transactions in this wallet younger than EIGHT MONTHS.  This was one of my first wallets, set up over a year ago, when I was first getting into bitcoins, and I was just trying to clean up and remove any coins from this old wallet before May 15th and shut off the POS laptop it occupies.

The two newest transaction are also over two weeks old, two referrals from Bitvisitor for 8 and 16 microbitcoins respectively... these are also the two smallest transactions in the wallet, as far as I am aware.  Every other transaction is at least seven and a half months older and up into the milli-bitcoin range or larger.

Thanks everyone for the cogent replies... and if anybody can figure out how the requested fees can jump around like a flea with an itch, pray continue.

I am immensely grateful... but the only two things on my "help" menu are "about," and "about Bitcoin QT."

Hello Everyone,

I'm having a weird problem with bitcoin fees.

I am attempting to transfer a balance of .40132441 from one of my early wallets (original bitcoin client, ver 0.6.3 beta) to another (I'm consolidating before upgrading... unless that's a bad idea?).

Being a proper cheapskate (my parents grew up during the great depression... if you don't know what that means, you're lucky), I first attempted to send the transaction for free.  Predictably, no soap.

I then went back into wallet settings and reset the fee to the lowest auto-generated amount of .001 bitcoin, adjusted the send amount to match, and tried again... and then the fun began.

This time a little screen popped up saying that "This transaction exceeds your balance when the fee of .00125 bitcoins is included."  So I went back and changed the send amount again to accommodate the extra .00125 bitcoins... and this time, the little screen demanded .0025 bitcoins, or twice the original fee!

This pattern continued with ever-increasing fees demanded until it had reached .025 bitcoins, twenty times the original fee, when the only different screen appeared, saying "This transaction is too large.  You can still send it by adding a fee of .0095 bitcoins."  Anyone who is perplexed by the question of why the software would demand .0095 bitcoins when the offered fee was already more tyhan two-and-a-half times as much... congratulations!  You're now almost as confused as I am!

After that single blip, the messages resumed their previous pattern of larger and larger fees requested, until I called a halt at .2378 bitcoins, which is over $40 by this morning's fix, and over half the balance of the ruddy wallet!

I then went and discovered that my original username ("TheVoiceofLiberty," if anyone remembers me) has somehow wandered off into cyberspace over the last six months, so I'm back to the newbie forum with my right name.

The operating system is Microcrap Windblows XT, build 3 (Yes, I know, and I'm already using ubuntu on the eventual destination machine, but these two old POS's would probably break down and cry if I attempted to upgrade them!).

Any ideas, anyone?

Thanks in advance