26 year old Kyle MacDonald had a red paper clip and a dream: Could he use the community power of the Internet to barter that paper clip for something better, and trade that thing for something else — and so on and so on until he had a house?
He advertised the paperclip on craigslist.com and two women swapped a fish-shaped pen for it.
Later that same day, MacDonald was able to trade the pen for a small ceramic doorknob with a smiley face on it.
He traded the doorknob for a Coleman camping stove.
Next, a US navy Marine swapped a generator in return for the stove.
Then a guy from New York swapped "instant party package" (a beer keg and a neon Budweiser sign) for the generator.
The beer package went to a DJ in Montreal, in exchange for a snowmobile.
By this time Macdonald was starting to attract attention and he was invited onto Canadian TV to tell his story.
As a result, he was able to trade the snowmobile for an all expenses paid trip to an obscure little town in Canada called “Yahk.”
He then traded the trip for a 1995 delivery van.
He gave the van to a muso wanting to haul her gear around in exchange for a recording contract, with studio time and a promise to pitch the finished CD to music executives.
He swapped the recording contract with a singer who gave him a year’s accommodation in a house in Phoenix Arizona.
He excchanged the accomodation in Arizona for a day with Alice Cooper. And the day with Alice Cooper he swapped for a snow globe of the band KISS! Now if you thought that was a weird swap get this. The KISS snow globe was swapped for an acting part in a movie! Aparently the actor Corbin Berinson is an avid snow globe collector and was particularly interested in the KISS snowglobe, so he swapped his part in the movie for the snowglobe!
Finally,a local municipality in Saskatchewan Canada, handed over the title deeds for a house for the movie role.
That is the amazing story of how Kyle MacDonald tyrned a red paper clip into a house! Macdonald says he has offers from Hollywood studios to turn his story into a film.
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