One year and 14 trades later, Kyle MacDonald had successfully bartered a single, red-paper clip all the way up to a house (shown on the left)
MacDonald began his quest last summer when he decided he wanted to live in a house. He didn't have a job, so instead of posting a resumé, he 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 that looks like a fish.
MacDonald then bartered the fish pen for a handmade doorknob from a potter in Seattle.
And so forth, and so forth ...
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/07/07/paperclip-house.html - via Metafilter