In the space of a year, a Canadian man managed to turn a red paperclip into a house, just by trading on the internet. In July 2005, 26 year-old Kyle MacDonald from Montreal posted the red paperclip on the barter section of an advertising website and was quickly offered a fish-shaped pen in exchange.
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| The red paperclip |
He then traded the pen for a ceramic doorknob, which he then swapped for a camping stove. Next came an electric generator, which he exchanged for a neon Budweiser beer sign. That was traded for a snowmobile, which in turn led to a ski vacation, a truck, and a recording contract. An aspiring singer snapped up the record deal, offering in exchange a year's rent in an apartment in Phoenix, Arizona, but the resourceful MacDonald managed to swap that for a Kiss snow globe, but Kyle knew that Hollywood director Corbin Bernsen was an avid collector of snow globes and sure enough he was able to trade the snow globe for a role in Bernsen's next movie.
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| The Paperclip House |
Finally in July 2006, the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, offered to exchange a three-bedroom house in the town for the movie role. It had taken Kyle just 14 trades to move from a red paperclip to a stationary house. Amazing.
