One Red Paperclip: The story of how one man changed his life one swap at a time

One man’s attempts to trade a paperclip for a house. A global adventure in the style of Dave Gorman and Danny Wallace

Kyle MacDonald wanted his own house. The problem was he didn’t have a job and he didn’t have any money. Thinking back to his childhood he remembered the game he loved to play - Bigger and Better. It was a way of trading your old stuff to get bigger and better new stuff. Legend had it, some people managed to trade an old biro for a brand new car! This got Kyle thinking. If that kind of entrepreneurial spirit could turn tiny objects into big ones, then why not try trading up to a house?
And then he saw it. One red paperclip, sitting on his desk, holding the pages of his CV together, ready to go out into the world and help him find the job that would eventually get him a house.
But that didn’t sound nearly as much fun as trading. So he wrote an internet advert hoping to trade one red paperclip and suddenly his inbox filled with responses- the trading had begun.
Did he get the house? Well, you’re about to find out! One thing’s for sure, he did a lot of trades and met a lot of very interesting people. One small paperclip was the beginning of a great big adventure.