Item: 3 paper clips

If I were truly enterprising, I could have done a lot with these paper clips.  I found out about the one red paper clip story in a conversation a couple of weeks ago about money and the barter system.  So the story is that this guy started with 1 red paper clip, made a series of trades, and ended up with a house in Canada.

I was surprised that it only took 14 trades to do it; I would have thought it would take more than that.  And maybe it would have, if not for the publicity.  I think this is a fascinating concept, though, in the trail of objects (plus non-tangible opportunities, in this case) and the personal interactions of every transaction, and also in people's conceptions of value.  This latter was evident when someone said he wasn't sure if having a house in Saskatchewan could be counted as a success, whereas I thought it sounded like the perfect resolution.