I thought this was kinda old news until I mentioned it to a few friends who hadn’t heard about it… So, in case you haven’t, here it is. And even though I’ve been hearing about this for awhile, I didn’t know the details of the earlier trades.
A Canadian man who set out to trade a paper clip to get a house says he is coming close to achieving his dream.
After a year of swapping items on the internet, Kyle MacDonald, 26, has been offered a year in a house in Phoenix, Arizona, rent-free.
Mr MacDonald, who lives in Montreal, initially exchanged his paper clip for a fish-shaped pen.
A series of trades ensued till the latest deal to exchange the Phoenix house for a music contract.
On his blog dated Tuesday, he writes: “Today I’m flying to Phoenix to meet up with [singer] Jody Gnant and make the official trade of the recording contract for the year’s worth of rent in Phoenix.
“I’ll decide what my next move will be later this week. Things are definitely heating up. I better remember to pack shorts.”
Mr MacDonald originally swapped the pen for a ceramic doorknob, which he in turn traded for a camping stove.
This was followed by a generator, bartered for an “instant party package”: an empty beer keg, a neon Budweiser sign and a promise to fill the keg – offered by a man in New York.
The beer package went to a Montreal DJ, in exchange for a snowmobile.
Interviewed on Canadian TV, Mr MacDonald was then asked if there was anywhere he would not go to trade the snowmobile.
He said he was prepared to travel to Yahk, a hamlet in the Canadian Rockies. A snowmobiling magazine offered the trip to Yahk in exchange for the snowmobile.
This was traded for a white van, which was used to secure a recording contract which in turn led to the offer of free accommodation in Phoenix.
But Mr MacDonald is not taking his eyes off the big prize: “I’m going to keep trading for bigger or better things until I get a house.”