HOW ONE CANADIAN MAN TRADED A RED PAPERCLIP FOR A $50 000 HOME
The internet was captivated by Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald almost two decades ago when he traded a red paperclip for a two-story house. Taking inspiration from the popular kid's game Bigger, Better, in which the object is to exchange one item for another, MacDonald needed almost a full year to go from being an ordinary office supply to a house. In July 2005, at the age of 26, MacDonald made the decision to buy a house because he was sick of paying high rent in Montreal. He made the decision to try to trade his way there because he wasn't employed at the time.
He put up a website, promised to visit whoever made an offer, and offered to trade his red paperclip. This started an amazing series of 14 trades that ended with MacDonald receiving an offer for a $50,000 house in the Saskatchewanian village of Kipling. In an interview with the BBC, he stated, "I knew it was possible." "If you set your mind to something, anything is possible."Someone in Vancouver offered him a fish-shaped pen, which he traded for his first item. He exchanged the pen for a hand-sculpted doorknob in Seattle that same day. Then he made the long drive to Massachusetts to finish a trade for a fuel-equipped Coleman camping stove. After a sergeant at Camp Pendelton gave him a 1000W Honda EX generator for the stove in September, there was a pause in activity. Following a brief panic when the generator was seized by the New York Fire Department, MacDonald managed to retrieve it and exchange it for a “instant party.” This was an IOU to fill the keg with beer, a neon Budweiser sign, and an empty keg. A Quebec comedian and radio host ended up hosting the party and offering his Ski-Doo snowmobile.
The snowmobile became a two-person trip to Yahk, British Columbia, which snowballed into a recording contract with an Ontario studio and eventually a box truck.
Things really started to get out of control by the spring of 2006, when the recording contract was exchanged for a year's worth of rent in Phoenix, Arizona, and then that was exchanged for an afternoon with Alice Cooper. Scooping up the Alice Cooper afternoon, a budding rock photographer and Cooper enthusiast exchanged a motorised KISS snow globe for MacDonald. Some fans expressed their disappointment on his website, citing this as a risk. However, MacDonald was right when he predicted that the snow globe would be valued by someone.
In actuality, the snow globe was exchanged for actor Corbin Bernsen's speaking part in a movie. As it happens, Bernsen seized the opportunity to add the uncommon KISS globe to his collection because he is an enthusiastic snow globe collector. At that point, the 1,140-person town of Kipling made the decision to volunteer a two-story farmhouse for the position. And then, in July of 2006, he pulled off the ultimate trade.
After moving into the house with his girlfriend, MacDonald sold it to the owner of a restaurant. To commemorate this extraordinary past, the establishment is now known as the Paperclip Cottage Cafe. The town of Kipling even has a sizable red paperclip sculpture to serve as a constant reminder of this wild journey.
Regarding MacDonald, he chronicled his journey in a book and encouraged others to strive for similar achievements. In retrospect, the project serves as a reminder of a less complicated era when people used the internet to connect with one another and form human connections.