Chris Smith: Windsor High grad offered a paper clip for trade and ended up with a car

Landon Straub, a theatrical and fertile-minded young man, cruises about Windsor in a gray Saturn he acquired in a most unusual manner.

Landon received the car in a trade. Indirectly, he swapped for it an ordinary, blue paper clip.

The 2019 Windsor High School alum initiated a sequence of ever-better swaps in April by going onto social media and offering to trade a blue paper clip. Cash value: some fraction of a cent.

He received some bites and traded the blue paper clip to a good sport for two surplus tattoo guns, handheld gizmos essential to creating a skin tattoo. Landon then swapped the tattoo machines for a used iPhone 6S.

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AS HE TRADED UP, Landon, who’s 19, drew on inspiration from Kyle MacDonald, the semi-famous Canadian blogger who 15 years ago founded bigger/better swapping by offering up a red paper clip and 14 trades later taking possession of a two-story farmhouse in Saskatchewan.

Landon went onto Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to seek someone interested in trading him something for the used iPhone. Here’s his Facebook page.

He heard from a woman keen to bring her husband into the smartphone era. She offered Landon for the iPhone two items: a battery-powered German clock and a pair of Nikon binoculars.

The woman told Landon that the clock, which can be set to any number of chimes, and the binoculars, which are ideal for bird-watching, had belonged to her late sister. On June 20, the trade was made.

Landon, who aspires to work in theater as a stage manager and lighting designer, kept the clock and on June 25 traded the binoculars for a drum set. The guy who’d had the drums told Landon the swap reminded him of the episode of “The Office” wherein the Dunder Mifflin crew holds a garage sale and Dwight Schrute sets out to see what he can get by trading — starting with a thumbtack.

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ON JULY 22, Landon traded the drum set for a vintage Gretsch G5122 electric guitar. The fellow on the other side of that trade told Landon he’s got plenty of guitars but has always wanted to learn to the play the drums.

The Gretsch is quite a beauty. One day last week, his offer on Facebook to trade the guitar caught the eye of Christy Hoss, an author and former teacher at Kenwood School.

Christy knew at once the Gretsch would be a lovely addition to the guitar collection treasured by her husband, Kevin, who plays in the worship band at Calvary Chapel the Rock in Santa Rosa. What to give Landon for the approximately $700 guitar?

Well, there was this 2000 Saturn four-door that Christy’s son received from his grandparents but no longer drives. Christy said it long sat at the curb, where a tree dumped so much yellowish fuzz on it that it looked like a tennis ball.

Christy offered the car for the guitar. Landon said, deal.

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THE SATURN, which has 160,000 miles on it, “drives really well,” Landon reports. “I’ve driven it around Windsor to get it cleaned up a bit, get an air freshener in it.”

Of course, he’s already offered the car for trade. He’s had a couple of offers.

One potential trader would give him a 2001 GMC Yukon. A second let Landon know he might swap for the Saturn a pair of Jordan shoes the guy said is worth a thousand bucks.

Landon’s still shopping for a trade. As with every potential swap, he’s not looking to get anything in particular for the 20-year-old Saturn, but to see what might come to him and who he might meet along the way.

He says much of the fun of the trade-up game is connecting with people and hearing their stories of why they’re interested in having his current item for trade, and what they’re willing or perhaps eager to part with to have it.

Landon has initiated trade sequences before, once for a fabulous class assignment in John Richard’s economic class at Windsor High. That time, Landon started with a Sharpie pen and encountered interesting folks and stories in the course of obtaining a calculator, then seven mannequin heads, then a fidget toy, then a glow-in-the-dark Kiss band power charger, then a power supply for an oscilloscope and ultimately an Integra DTR-5.5 home-theater receiver.

Landon has learned that unless you set a time limit for a swap sequence, you stop when you hit a wall or you’re satisfied with whatever you got in the last swap.

Right now he’s content to drive a Saturn with a memento he hung from the rear-view mirror: A blue paper clip very much like the one he started out with.

Landon would love to swap the car for something he regards as better. He can but dream about what might come to him next, and after that.

He suspects that if he trades up to a Central Park penthouse or a private island or a seat on a SpaceX trip around the moon, he’ll know to quit.

You can contact columnist Chris Smith at 707 521-5211 and chris.smith@pressdemocrat.com.