The Guy Who Traded A Paperclip For A House

Ever hear of the guy who started with one paperclip and traded it up to his own home?

In 2005, a Canadian blogger named Kyle MacDonald started an experiment that turned out to be wildly successful. Inspired by a game he played as child called "Bigger, Better", he started a website called One Red Paper Clip in order to see how far he could get from a series of barters. It turned out to be a really great idea, as within only a year's time and 14 trades later, he owned his own house!

Kyle MacDonald's house

First, MacDonald traded a red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen in Vancouver on July 14, 2005. That same day he was able to trade the pen for a hand-sculpted doorknob from Seattle, Washington. About 10 days later, he trekked all the way to Amherst, Massachusetts, where he traded the doorknob for a Coleman camp stove. In September, he found someone in California to trade him the stove for a Honda generator, which was a significant gain for him.

One month later, he headed back to the east coast, to New York City, where the generator was temporarily confiscated by the fire department. In storage at his hotel, an employee smelled gas, which led to the confiscation. Fortunately, he was able to retrieve it after making a number of frantic calls, and the next day traded up again. This time, he received a neon Budweiser sign, and an empty keg with an IOU to fill it with a beer of the holder's choice.

At this point, Kyle's project was starting to gain media attention, and a radio host from Quebec traded him a Ski-Doo snowmobile for his "instant party" in the beginning of December. Within a week Kyle traded the snowmobile for a trip for two to Yahk, British Columbia, after a TV interview where he jokingly vowed to go anywhere to barter except Yahk. By this time, the novelty of his project had really garnered a buzz and he was able to make some really interesting trades from the media spotlight. He bartered for a box truck, then a studio recording contract with 30 hours recording time, 50 hours mixing/post, transportation to and accomodation in Toronto from anywhere in the world. A young singer in Arizona who wanted to get a career off the ground soon snapped up this contract deal in exchange for a year's free rent in one half of a duplex in downtown Phoenix, plus roundtrip airfare for two.

The lady in the other half of the Phoenix duplex worked at rocker Alice Cooper's restaurant, who agreed to help her out. Cooper offered up an afternoon doing something cool with him, in exchange for his employee to get a year's free rent (what a cool guy!). Next, Kyle traded the time to a huge Alice Cooper fan.....for a motorized KISS snowglobe? I don't know what he was thinking here, but he still got to spend time with Alice Cooper, who even brought Kyle onstage at a show.

Inexplicably, the snowglobe was scooped up quickly by actor Corbin Bernsen, who is a huuge snowglobe collector apparently...?! For the globe, Kyle received a credited speaking-role in a movie, Donna on Demand.
By the first week in July 2006, he landed a two-story farmhouse in Kipling, Saskatchewan. The town offered him the house in return for the movie casting someone from the town for the role. They set up auditions and everything, and gained some publicity and recognition for their town.

Kyle and his house.

Read his blog here: http://oneredpaperclip.blogspot.com/