A House For One Red Paperclip

Tim_F writes to mention the news that Kyle MacDonald (the guy trying to trade a red paperclip for a house) has succeeded in his quest. His recently traded a KISS Snowglobe in exchange for one afternoon with Alice Cooper. He in turn traded the snowglobe to an enthusiastic snowglobe collector, for a role in a movie. From the article: "Now, the town of Kipling, Sask., located about two hours east of Regina with a population of 1,100, has offered MacDonald a farmhouse in exchange for the role in the movie. MacDonald and his girlfriend will fly to the town next Wednesday. 'We are going to show them the house, give them the keys to the house and give them the key to the town and just have some fun,' said Pat Jackson, mayor of Kipling."

Comments

So what?

[MarkByers]

So what?

He has a farmhouse in the town of Kipling, Sask.? So...? Why stop now? If he could trade that for two red paperclips, doubling his original investment, I'd be impressed.

quote from tfa

[Ohreally_factor]

"This is not the end. This may be the end of this segment of the story, but this story will go on. "

It would be ironic if he died of a paper cut that could have been prevented by a paperclip.

Almost made it as far as him....

[gsfprez]

you've heard all the stories about guys in the military during WWII trading whiskey for bullets or other such things, well, my buddy and i came upon a huge spool of single mode fiber optic cable - Like, dining room table sized. Anyhow, our plan was to trade up the spool of fiber to an F-15 that we could share since we were in the Air Force.

we got as far as finding a guy that would take the spool from us after we used all the fiber... oh well.

Best laid plans and all....

Amazing.

[NexFlamma]

This story, more than anything else I've seen, shows the amazing powers of the internet. Simply by connecting so many people in almost-real-time, stuff like this has become a possibility. Admittedly, I'm sure many of the trades only came about via the publicity and novelty of the idea, but before we had the world literally at our fingertips, such ideas wouldn't have been even remotely possible.

I applaud this guy simply for trying something new and having it work out for him nicely.

Re:Amazing.

[AuMatar]

Most of them were. I see very few of the trades that weren't based on novelty or publicity. Paperclip for a pen- novelty. Pen for doorknob- novelty. THe stove and generator were legit, but the snowmobile was pure publicity. So was the trip to Yahk- although props for being so canny in setting it up. The truck was publicity. The recording contract was novelty. The years rent and the afternoon with Alice Cooper were legit (well, Alice probably liked the publicity but I could buy him doing it for an employee without it- it could happen). The snowglobe was legit but the movie role and house were pure publicity as well.

Basicly he got lucky, got some publicity, and made a few good moves with that publicity to make it happen. Don't expect it to work for you.

Re:Kyle MacDonald!

[wbren]

I think you hit the nail on the head. This story belongs with the Million Dollar Home Page and other stupid ideas that people went along with because it was getting a lot of publicity. This story doesn't prove that bartering is still alive. It doesn't prove that you can start with nothing and end up with something. All it proves is that people are willing to jump on just about any bandwagon. I mean come on, some town no one has ever heard of just happens to give the guy a house for a small movie roll? Hooray for bartering.

Re:Red paperclip?

[skippy_twin]

Actually, it should have been a green paperclip for the house.

Save the red paperclip for a hotel!

(Yes, I am missing a few Monopoly pieces. Why do you ask?)

Re:pure hype

[jbarket]

He traded the KISS Snowglobe for a role in a movie. He then traded the role in the movie for the farmhouse. Nowhere in the article, in his bio, or anywhere else you could have yanked it did it say he was a filmmaker.

Pet Choices

[pipingguy]

Saskatchewan is one of those places where you can watch your dog run away for a couple of weeks. This is not so with cats or hamsters (too disorganized and buffalo food respectively). Fish still refuse to live in the province.

Kipling land value

[mh101]

To give you all an idea of how much land is worth... Current for sale in or around Kipling:

• 320 acres of farmland for $100,000 CAD
• 1200 sq. ft. home in town, for $54,000 CAD

And here's a complete map of Kipling.