One Red Paperclip is entertaining and profound. The guy started with a red paperclip, and is trying to barter his way up to a house.

Of course, he has to make each barter for something better than he's giving away. But why should his barters be so profitable?

Clearly, one of the things is that the story gets bigger and better each time. Seth Godin would understand. So would Marx : alienation is the transfer of the story from the maker of the object to the object itself (often to the benefit of the seller).

These objects are mystified and animated by the spirit of the story. The blog puts that story out there, available for everyone to see. People get in touch, trade their old junk for the last piece of old junk, to be part of the story.