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Bigger and Better · Aaron Mahnke's Cabinet of Curiosities

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  Speaker 1: Welcome to Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities, a production of
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  Speaker 1: iHeartRadio and Grimm and Mild. Our world is full of
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  Speaker 1: the unexplainable, and if history is an open book, all
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  Speaker 1: of these amazing tales are right there on display, just
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  Speaker 1: waiting for us to explore. Welcome to the Cabinet of Curiosities.
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  Speaker 1: They say that everything is bigger in Texas, belt buckles, stakes,
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  Speaker 1: even state pride. But the lone Star state can officially
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  Speaker 1: lay claim to one thing that it does bigger than
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  Speaker 1: any other states in the Union, that has the most
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  Speaker 1: buried treasure. And it was all thanks to one man
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  Speaker 1: and his family. Off the coast of Texas in the
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  Speaker 1: Gulf of Mexico is an island. It's called Padre Island,
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  Speaker 1: the longest barrier island in the world world, stretching one
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  Speaker 1: hundred and thirteen miles from end to end. It had
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  Speaker 1: once belonged to several Native American tribes, including the Karankawa.
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  Speaker 1: Much of their culture has been lost to time and colonization.
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  Speaker 1: Today only five hundred words of their language are known,
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  Speaker 1: But what we do know is that they were very
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  Speaker 1: nomadic and very tall. It's believed that the Karankawa were
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  Speaker 1: over six feet tall, with some even pushing seven feet.
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  Speaker 1: They also communicated using smoke signals. Around fifteen fifty four,
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  Speaker 1: a fleet of Spanish ships invaded the island. Three vessels
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  Speaker 1: crashed along the island's sandy shores and left behind at
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  Speaker 1: least one hundred and fifty casualties. The survivors spread rumors
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  Speaker 1: about the Karankawa being cannibalistic, although it's more likely that
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  Speaker 1: they invented that excuse when it became clear that they
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  Speaker 1: would not convert to Catholicism. The last vestiges of the
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  Speaker 1: tribe were wiped out in the eighteen nineties by Mexican
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  Speaker 1: and Texan colonists. Now Padre Island earned its name in
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  Speaker 1: the seventeen hundreds thanks to Jose Nicholas Bali. Bali was
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  Speaker 1: a secular Catholic priest or Padre who owned the island
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  Speaker 1: during that time. Many years later, in eighteen forty seven,
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  Speaker 1: a man named John Singer and his wife Johanna came
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  Speaker 1: to Texas to settle down. They started a shipping business,
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  Speaker 1: hauling cargo on their new three masted schooner, which they
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  Speaker 1: dubbed the Alice Saddle. During their first year, as entrepreneurs.
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  Speaker 1: Their vessel met a similar fate as those Spanish ships
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  Speaker 1: from hundreds of years before. A nasty storm shipwrecked the
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  Speaker 1: Singers on Padre Island. When the reins cleared, they got
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  Speaker 1: to work grabbing what they could from the vessel. Suddenly, though,
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  Speaker 1: it dawned on them they would need shelter, so John
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  Speaker 1: built a small home on the island for the family
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  Speaker 1: to live in, constructing furniture out of driftwood and pieces
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  Speaker 1: from the ship. Pretty soon they knew their arrangements would
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  Speaker 1: no longer be temporary. They stayed put even when help
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  Speaker 1: finally arrived to take them home. They loved Padre Island
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  Speaker 1: and found it to be the perfect place for rebuilding
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  Speaker 1: their lives. To go back and forth between Pidre Island
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  Speaker 1: and the mainland. Though John constructed a smaller boat, he
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  Speaker 1: also bought cattle and planted a garden selling vegetables to
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  Speaker 1: make ends meet. Granted, Johanna's family had plenty of money already,
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  Speaker 1: so they never really wanted for anything anyway. After about
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  Speaker 1: four years of this, the Singers gained possession of Padre
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  Speaker 1: Bally's ranch, which they purchased from his estate. John also
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  Speaker 1: became a wreck master, meaning that he was allowed to
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  Speaker 1: keep anything salvaged from any of the ships that crashed ashore,
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  Speaker 1: and over the course of their lives, quite a bit
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  Speaker 1: of treasure washed onto the island. In fact, one storm
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  Speaker 1: in eighteen fifty four brought them untold amounts of gold, jewelry,
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  Speaker 1: and other items. Sadly, their slice of paradise would not
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  Speaker 1: be their forever home. At the start of the Civil War,
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  Speaker 1: the Confederates in Texas pushed Singer, his wife, and his
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  Speaker 1: seven children off of Padre Island. But before they left,
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  Speaker 1: they made sure to hide their hull somewhere in a
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  Speaker 1: sand dune they called Money Hill. The Singers buried roughly
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  Speaker 1: eighty thousand dollars in cash, Spanish, bablloons, and jewelry. Today
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  Speaker 1: that fortune would be worth about three million dollars. At
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  Speaker 1: the end of the war, the family returned to the
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  Speaker 1: island to reclaim what they had left behind. Very little
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  Speaker 1: of their homestead remained. Their house had been dismantled for firewood,
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  Speaker 1: and their cows had been killed for food by the
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  Speaker 1: Confederate soldiers. What's more, the island itself was now a
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  Speaker 1: shadow of what it had been. The terrain was all
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  Speaker 1: different changed by war and weather. Money Hill was gone
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  Speaker 1: and with it their treasure. John tried on multiple occasions
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  Speaker 1: to find the missing money with his son Alexander, but
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  Speaker 1: to no avail. He died in eighteen seventy seven, and
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  Speaker 1: with him any chance of finding it. Others have tried
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  Speaker 1: to look for the treasure today, but none have been
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  Speaker 1: able to locate it. The theories vary, with some claiming
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  Speaker 1: that it's at the southmostern tip, while others believe it
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  Speaker 1: stashed in between a pair of oak trees. Legend has
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  Speaker 1: it that the treasure is still out there waiting to
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  Speaker 1: be found. Just grab a shovel and keep an eye
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  Speaker 1: on the weather. How much is a paper clip worth?
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  Speaker 1: It's actually a more complex question than you might think.
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  Speaker 1: Value is relative, after all, and an item's worth is
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  Speaker 1: determined by a number of factors. If you go on
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  Speaker 1: Amazon right now, you can order one thousand paper clips
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  Speaker 1: for about ten bucks. Based on that, you could say
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  Speaker 1: that a paper clip is worth a penny. But what
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  Speaker 1: if your paper clip was made out of sterling silver
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  Speaker 1: and emblazon with the word Prada. In twenty seventeen, paper
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  Speaker 1: clips like that were actually sold, and a single one
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  Speaker 1: would have cost you about one hundred and eighty five
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  Speaker 1: US dollars, which sounds like highway robbery until you learn
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  Speaker 1: about a very curious story from two thousand and five.
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  Speaker 1: It all began with a single red paper clip, which
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  Speaker 1: belonged to a twenty six year old Canadian man named
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  Speaker 1: Kyle MacDonald. While Kyle was little, he used to play
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  Speaker 1: this game called Bigger and Better, which was basically where
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  Speaker 1: you had an item and you try to trade it
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  Speaker 1: for something that was well bigger and better. So that's
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  Speaker 1: it exactly what he set out to do with his
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  Speaker 1: red paper clip. In June of two thousand and five,
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  Speaker 1: he listed the little Office supply on Craigslist and he
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  Speaker 1: said that he was open to trade offers. Two women
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  Speaker 1: from Vancouver saw the post and thought it was funny.
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  Speaker 1: They searched around the house for something to swap and
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  Speaker 1: soon responded to Kyle with a proposition. How would he
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  Speaker 1: like to trade his paper clip for a pen shaped
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  Speaker 1: like a fish? And Kyle said sure, why not? Next
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  Speaker 1: thing he knew, he was the proud owner of a
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  Speaker 1: quill with gills. From there, he made a deal with
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  Speaker 1: a potter who lived in Seattle. Kyle sent the fish
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  Speaker 1: pen to the US and received a handmade doorknob in return.
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  Speaker 1: The trades kept piling up a doorknob for a camping stove,
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  Speaker 1: the camping stove for a one hundred watt generator, a
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  Speaker 1: generator for an empty beer keg and a light up
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  Speaker 1: Budweiser sign. And then the most lucrative swap yet, Kyle
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  Speaker 1: got in touch with a Montreal radio host who apparently
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  Speaker 1: really wanted that Keg and Neon sign. In exchange, he
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  Speaker 1: offered Kyle a snowmobile. In just six trades, Kyle had
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  Speaker 1: managed to turn a paper clip into a fully operational vehicle,
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  Speaker 1: and that would be impressive enough, but he didn't stop there.
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  Speaker 1: His curious crusade was starting to earn him some media attention,
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  Speaker 1: and a small town Canadian magazine wanted to make a trade.
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  Speaker 1: They told Kyle that for the snowmobile, they would give
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  Speaker 1: him an all expense pay trip to the snowy town
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  Speaker 1: of Yak, British Columbia, which is just across the US
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  Speaker 1: Canadian border. Kyle couldn't believe his luck. Obviously, he said yes,
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  Speaker 1: and then he turned around and bartered that trip for
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  Speaker 1: a literal moving truck. Now this is where Kyle really
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  Speaker 1: went off the rails. Instead of trading the truck for
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  Speaker 1: another item, he swapped it for a service, a recording
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  Speaker 1: contract with a professional music producer. This included recording and
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  Speaker 1: post production of a full album and a promise that
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  Speaker 1: the finished product would be pitched to executives at Sony
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  Speaker 1: and XM Radio. This was huge, and it kept getting bigger.
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  Speaker 1: An aspiring singer wanted that contract desperately, and she agreed
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  Speaker 1: to give Kyle a year of free rent in her
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  Speaker 1: apartment in Phoenix, Arizona. But Kyle did it. I want
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  Speaker 1: to live in Phoenix. So he swapped that year long
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  Speaker 1: vacation for an afternoon with rock legend Alice Cooper, and
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  Speaker 1: then he traded that once in a lifetime opportunity for
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  Speaker 1: a snow globe. Okay, now would be a good time
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  Speaker 1: to remind you of how we began this story. That
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  Speaker 1: all value is relative, and this wasn't just any snow
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  Speaker 1: globe that he had just traded for. It was a
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  Speaker 1: special collectible snow globe inspired by the rock band Kiss.
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  Speaker 1: And while most of us probably wouldn't care about a
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  Speaker 1: branded glass sphere, there was someone who did. He was
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  Speaker 1: a collector named Corbin Burnson. And in exchange for the
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  Speaker 1: snow globe, he gave Kyle a credited speaking role in
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  Speaker 1: a film being produced by a major studio. And look,
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  Speaker 1: Kyle knew that this was it one more trade and
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  Speaker 1: he would have exactly what he was looking for. The
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  Speaker 1: Mayor and Town Council of Kipling, Saskatchewans soon reached out
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  Speaker 1: to him with an offer. They would like to swap
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  Speaker 1: him the movie role for a house on Main Street.
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  Speaker 1: And this is what Kyle had wanted all along. From
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  Speaker 1: the outset. He had dreamed of bartering that little red
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  Speaker 1: paper clip until he got himself a place to live.
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  Speaker 1: He moved in on July twelfth of two thousand and six,
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  Speaker 1: about a year after his first trade. So again, what
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  Speaker 1: is a paperclip worth a penny or a house? And
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  Speaker 1: the answer to that question is a curious one indeed.
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  Speaker 1: I hope you've enjoyed today's guided tour of the Cabinet
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  Speaker 1: of Curiosities. Subscribe for free on Apple Podcasts, or learn
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  Speaker 1: more about the show by visiting Curiosities podcast dot com.
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  Speaker 1: The show was created by me Aaron Mankey in partnership
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  Speaker 1: with how Stuff Works. I make another award winning show
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  Speaker 1: called Lore, which is a podcast, book series, and television show,
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  Speaker 1: and you can learn all about it over at the
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  Speaker 1: worldoflore dot com. And until next time, stay curious.