Some of you may recall Kyle MacDonald and his quest to trade one red paper clip for a house. Well, actually his plan was to trade up, starting with one red paperclip, and eventually ending up with a house.
Well guess what. Kyle MacDonald has done it! In fact, in not quite a year, Kyle MacDonald has managed to parlay one red paperclip, through a series of trades including a part in the movie “Donna on Demand”, into a real house, in Kipling, Saskatchewan. Nevermind that Kipling, Saskatchewan is 3,326 kilometers (about 2066 miles) from MacDonald’s current home of Montreal. The point is, he traded one red paperclip for a house!
Let me repeat that:
He traded one red paperclip for a house!
That’s pretty amazing.
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And it took him less than a year to do it (only just, but still)!
Kyle MacDonald started his quest on July 12th, 2005. And the house deal was announced this Friday. On this Wednesday, July 12th, it will have been exactly one year.
It’s a pretty phenomenal feat!
And he did it in only 14 trades!
Perhaps most amazing of all is that the last two trades, the ones which include the house, started with a snow globe.
Yep, that’s right, a snow globe.
But let’s take you through the entire chain of trades, because it’s pretty incredible.
First Kyle MacDonald traded his one red paper clip for a fish pen. That is, a pen which looks like a fish. Then he traded his fish pen for a small custom-made door knob which looked, said Kyle, “like E.T. after he smoked a bat.”
The door knob was traded for a Coleman camping stove, and here is where it started to get get really interesting. For one, MacDonald had committed to traveling anywhere to make a trade. So this trade was made in Massachusetts.
The Coleman stove was traded for a generator, which was traded for an “instant party kit” (a Bud sign, an empty keg, and a voucher to get the keg filled). Now, you might think that there would be nowhere much to go from here. But you’d be wrong.
Because the instant party was traded for a snowmobile belonging to a local (to Montreal) radio personality, and immediately following that Kyle appeared on the television show of another Canadian personality, George Stroumboulopoulos.
And on the air with George Stroumboulopoulos, George Stroumboulopoulos asked MacDonald about his pledge to go anywhere to do a trade. “Anywhere??” asked George Stroumboulopoulos. “Well, anywhere but Yahk, British Columbia.”
So of course, Kyle MacDonald got a call from some nice folks in Yahk, British Columbia, who offered to trade the snowmobile for a trip to that one place he said he wouldn’t go: Yahk, British Columbia. And he had to bring the snowmobile of course.
Then he got an offer from Cintas for a moving truck (he calls it a “cube van”) in exchange for the trip to Yahk – but the catch was he had to go along. So the moving truck took the snowmobile to Yahk, and MacDonald got to keep the truck.
Which he traded for … a recording contract!
Which he traded to an up and coming singer for a year’s free rent in her duplex in Phoenix, Arizona.
Now, it turns out that the tenant in the other half of the duplex worked for Alice Cooper in his restaurant in Phoenix, and so she traded an afternoon with Alice Cooper for the year’s free rent.
MacDonald then traded the afternoon with Alice Cooper for a KISS snowglobe – yes, really. A very special mechanized KISS snow globe.
Well, guess who collects rare snow globes? None other than Corbin Bernsen (yes, that Corbin Bernsen), who offered Kyle a speaking role in his upcoming movie “Donna on Demand” in exchange for the snow globe.
Well, that must have been the weight that tipped the scales, because the town of Kipling, Saskatchewan, which had apparently already attempted to trade with MacDonald for a key to the city and an empty lot (!), called him up and offered him a house in exchange for the speaking part in Bernsen’s movie.
And not just a house. MacDonald also gets the key to the town of Kipling, $200 in cash to be spent with any Kipling merchant, a full day as honourary mayor of Kipling. Plus, they are going to build the world’s largest red paper clip, and name the day of the trade “Red Paperclip Day”, when everyone will be encouraged to wear one red paper clip!
Obviously the town of Kipling is banking on this leading to a media frenzy, and they say that they hope to conduct auditions for the movie “Donna on Demand” right there in Kipling (leading to further media frenzy).
And how does Kyle MacDonald feel about his accomplishment? Says MacDonald of his new home on 503 Main St., Kipling:
“This is going to be great. I’ve never lived on Main Street before. Any Main Street.”
You can read all about it at Kyle’s blog, “One Red Paperclip
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