How this paperclip became a van

Kyle MacDonald (right) with the van he has now swapped for a recording contract

As you lean across your desk and toss away that chewed styrofoam cup - yes the one you've just drawn a smiley face on - stop. You might just be throwing away a car, a small island in the South Pacific or perhaps the keys to your dream house.

This is the story of a man named Kyle MacDonald, a dream to own a house, a website and a red paperclip.

Last July 12, the 26-year-old, house-hunting Canadian realised he didn't have enough money for a deposit.

"I looked down on my desk and there was a red paperclip sitting there," MacDonald recalls. "I thought, I don't have a down payment but I have a paperclip."

At that moment he remembered a childhood game he called "bigger and better". The idea is to start with something small and walk from door to door asking people if they want to trade for something bigger and better.

"At the end of the day you end up cleaning out someone's basement... like a scavenger hunt kind of game."

Starting with the paperclip, he decided to play the game online with the aim of trading up to an entire house and not just the dusty contents of the basement.

One red paper clip was born and MacDonald began a journey that has taken him 50,000km across North America.

So far, his paperclip has evolved into a recording contract.

His trades started out small, with the paperclip first becoming a fish-shaped pen, which in turn was traded for a doorknob.

The swaps inevitably got bigger - much bigger. By trade number eight he had unbelievably turned his paperclip into a fully tuned van. Since then he has traded the van for the recording contract.

The contract, with Toronto's MetalWorks Studios, includes recording and production for one entire album's worth of material. It includes transport to and from Toronto from anywhere in North America, accommodation and a pitch of the finished product to executives at Sony-BMG.

MacDonald has been offered a full body tattoo - his weirdest offer to date - by a band in Oregon in exchange for the record deal. He's still considering the trade.

"That's not the kind of thing you ever imagine someone's going to offer you," he says. "It's so outrageous that it might be worthwhile."

The journey from paperclip to recording studio seems incredible but, as MacDonald explains, the individual trades can make sense to both parties.

Swapping cut-rate access to a recording studio made sense to the studio employee who needed a van for his band.

However, at one stage MacDonald thought the project might be over when he found himself stuck with a generator that wasn't getting any offers. But the support of strangers who want him to achieve his goal of a house has kept him motivated.

"If I were to say, 'I give up,' I would look like a total schmuck to every single person out there."

He describes the dream of reaching the house as the plot of a story that would mean nothing without the people he has met along the way.

"Anyone who's going to offer to trade something for a red paperclip through the internet is good in my book," he says.

"They get the point that it's not about the object, it's about co-operating with people and meeting people and doing things together rather than just some sort of commercial exchange"

He looks for this spirit in the people he swaps with and has travelled to meet every trader.

"I can tell right away when someone is sinister or saying in the back of their head, 'I'm just going to get free publicity off this'."

MacDonald does, however, accept that there is some notoriety attached to particular trades.

When a radio and television personality in Quebec offered to trade his snowmobile for a keg of beer and a neon Budweiser sign, it was an offer MacDonald couldn't refuse.

He had traded down in value by handing over the generator to get the beer keg but he always thought the keg had potential "because beer is probably as liquid an asset as you can get".

The trading has become a full-time occupation for MacDonald, who plans to write a book about the experience.

It's a journey that has taught him more in six months than four years of study at university, including the concepts of marketing, web design, media relations and human nature.

"I always think things are possible, however I realise there's a huge bridge between here and the goal. I've been saying throughout the whole thing.. start small [but] think big."

Belly button fluff for a bach in the Coromandel anybody ... anybody?


Trading up

Trade 1: Paperclip for a fish-shaped pen.
Trade 2: Fish-shaped pen for a doorknob.
Trade 3: Doorknob for a barbecue.
Trade 4: Barbecue for a generator.
Trade 5: Generator for a keg of beer and neon sign.
Trade 6: Keg of beer for a snowmobile.
Trade 7: Snowmobile for an all-inclusive, three-day trip to Yahk, British Columbia.
Trade 8: Three-day trip for a van.
Trade 9: Van for a recording contract