One red paperclip

One red paperclip is a website created by Canadian blogger Kyle MacDonald, who traded his way from a single red paperclip to a house in a series of fourteen online trades over the course of a year.

His site received a considerable amount of notice for tracking the transactions.

"A lot of people have been asking how I've stirred up so much publicity around the project, and my simple answer is: 'I have no idea'", he told the BBC.

[2] The story has inspired countless copycats, who have attempted to trade their way up from a paperclip (or other small items) to something expensive, with varying degrees of success.

[3] MacDonald made his first trade, a red paper clip for a fish-shaped pen, on July 14, 2005.

The paperclip that Kyle MacDonald used to start the series of trades by which eventually he traded for a house.
Kyle MacDonald's house
This red paper clip sculpture was installed in 2007 at Bell Park in Kipling as a monument to the series of trades made by MacDonald. At the time, it was the world's largest paper clip.