This ticks me off. This is the type of goofy idea I would try but it would never work for me.
Some yahoo advertised on craigs list that he was trying to trade slightly up with people to see how big of a return he could get for what started out as a paper clip.
So he got some guy to trade him his paperclip for a pen, and then the pen for a clipboard, and so on and so on.
Well, in the end some city saw his ongoing story and wanted to get some publicity, so they offered to trade him a home in their city for whatever item he had worked his way up to.