Smart people are still out there and this guy takes the cake.
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio...lip051208.html
Montreal man trading paper-clip for house
Last Updated Thu, 08 Dec 2005 18:50:27 EST
CBC News
A Montreal man is grabbing international attention for his increasingly successful quest to barter a single red paper-clip for a house.
Five months ago, Kyle MacDonald looked at a red paper-clip on his desk and decided to trade it on an internet website. He got a response almost immediately – from a pair of young women in Vancouver who offered to trade him a pen.
"It was a fish-shaped pen. And I got it from a pair of vegans. So it was a great exchange. They didn't want anything to do with fish," he said.
MacDonald, 25, then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle.
"It was a ceramic doorknob that had been hand-shaped by, I believe the person I traded with, her son, and she had been trying to get rid of it for quite some time," said MacDonald.
Annie Robbins, the Seattle potter who now owns the fish pen, says she loves the idea.
"I think the whole concept really flips the idea of consumerism around. How we value things, and what things are really worth," she said.
In Massachusetts, MacDonald traded the doorknob for a camp stove. He traded the stove to a U.S. marine sergeant in California for a 100-watt generator.
In Queens, N.Y., he exchanged the generator for the "instant party kit" – an empty keg of beer and an illuminated Budweiser beer sign.
On Thursday, MacDonald traded the keg and sign for a Bombardier snowmobile, courtesy of a Montreal radio host.
"If I get up to larger items, I'm going to need a larger base of people to pick from. There is someone out there with a surplus house. I just have to find them," said MacDonald.
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Good luck to him. If only I had the energy. Fantastic Idea.
Hmmmm...I have a nice pair of dentures...
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