eBay has dozens of millions of listings up right now, and most of them are pretty common stuff. People use eBay to sell their old clothes, mobile phones and other everyday items. But with a marketplace so large, there have to be some exceptions. eBay even has a section for all the unusual listings that people put up. Most of the stuff you see there are creepy paintings and dolls with some gag items here and there. But, some people actually took it up a whole new level.
Some people posted some weird eBay listings up, and what’s even more weird – someone bought them. Today we’re taking a look at top 10 weirdest eBay items that were actually sold.
Back in 1994, Diane Duyser made herself a toasted cheese sandwich. She noticed that the sandwich has an image of Virgin Mary on it, according to her. Ms Duyser decided against eating it and kept it for a whole decade before selling it in 2004. According to her, the sandwich has mystical powers, including helping her win $70,000 at a casino and never going stale or getting moldy. The sandwich was kept in a plastic box for 10 years before she auctioned it on eBay. Golden Palace, an internet casino, bought it for $28,000. They decided to take it on a worldwide tour and reselling it in order to donate the money to charity. Before it was sold, the listing went viral and had 1.7 million views on eBay.
$28,000 in 2004 is about the same as $35,000 today. Let’s see what can be bought with that money, instead of a cheese sandwich with Virgin Mary on it:
Almost 3,000 pairs of huge googly eyes, surely a better waste of money
43 newest iPhones for your entire neighborhood
9) Casey Anthony Mask
The case of Caylee Anthony’s death was a very popular 2008 story. Long story short, Casey Anthony, Caylee’s mom, was found innocent, but the whole stigma remained. She was labeled as a child neglecter and a cold-blooded murdered, although the court didn’t find her guilty. In 2011, a rubber Casey Anthony mask appeared on eBay. It was one of the six masks used in a parody, and the user “prophunter” decided to sell off one of them. The mask reached a bid of $999,900, and was sold for that amount. Not a typo, that’s a little lass than one million United State dollars.
Let’s see what the bidder could have bought for a million dollars instead:
2 of the world’s most expensive smartphones and have some money left over
World’s 5th most expensive camera for God knows what reason
14 bottles of some of the finest tequila in the whole world – Two Moons Tequilla
8) Rob Ford’s “Crack Tie”
Rob Ford is Toronto’s former Mayor who recently sold a tie of his. What makes the tie special? Well, Ford wore that exact tie at a conference in 2013, where he admitted that he smoked crack cocaine. The tie reached bids of over $16,000 during its first listing, but the listing was closed due to fraudulent offers. The second time it was posted, in April 2015, the tie sold for $1,445.
Here are a couple of things that you can buy for one “crack tie”:
55 Ducky Ties like the one that Barney Stinson wore in HIMYM
7) A Doritos Chip Resembling Pope’s Hat
The item became so popular that there are now cosplayers of it.
Golden Palace casino really likes spending extraordinary amounts of money on eBay. After buying the Virgin Mary sandwich, they decided to go shopping again, and got a chip that looks like the Pope’s hat, according to the seller. In 2005, Golden Palace internet casino won the auction with a $1,209 bid, beating 34 other bidders. Richard Rowe, the CEO of the casino, is proud of the purchase and was happy to add it to their collection of eccentric items.
Today’s value of that is roughly $1,500. In other words, they could’ve gotten themselves Ford’s crack tie if they waited for 10 years. Surely the tie at least has some use.
6) The Meaning of Life
An eBay user from North Carolina apparently discovered the meaning of life in 2000. And what does one do upon such a discovery? Well, list it as an eBay auction, of course! The listing received 8 bids, 8 more than we would expect. The winner ended up buying the meaning of life for $3.26. What a bargain deal!
$3,26 in 200 is the same as $4,54 today. You can’t really buy many things for less than $5, but each and every one of those is a better choice in our opinion:
This article isn’t sponsored by Golden Palace, but here they are on the list again. Could buying weird eBay items be a part of their marketing strategy? It seems so at this point. Anyways, a pregnancy test that allegedly belonged to Britney Spears was auctioned on eBay in 2005, after the news of her pregnancy broke out. The test was apparently found in a trash can outside of her hotel room and was auctioned by Otawa’s Hot 89.9 radio station. Golden Palace copped the item for $5,001, adding it to their odd collection of items.
Let’s check out what else you can buy for that amount today ($6,100):
LOTS of budget smartphones to give to your clumsy neighbors after they drop the iPhones
305 plushies of Pikachu holding an apple because awwwww
Over 400 fake pregnancy tests so you can have a whole set
4) Just Bieber’s Hair
In 2011, as he was getting more and more famous, Justin Bieber starred as a guest on Ellen DeGeneres’ show. He clipped some of his hair and gifted it to her in a signed box, and she decided to put it on a week-long eBay auction. All the profits were promised to charity, which probably played a part in the winning bid of $40,668. The bidder was also promised to meet JB next time he shows up on Ellen. Other things could have been bought with that amount obviously, but since it was a charity donation as well, we think it was a nice idea to donate it.
3) Bridgeville, California
Yup, an entire town was auctioned on eBay. Isn’t internet a beautiful thing? Bridgeville is a town with a population of 25 that was listed three times in the past couple of years. It was first sold to Bruce Krall for $700,000 in 2002 who sold it in 2006 for $1.25 million to Daniel T. La Paille. Mr. La Paille committed suicide later that year, and the town was back on the market a year after. Another purchase almost happened in 2013, but the buyer, Steve Farzam, backed out due to a high asking price, of over 1 million.
For over a million bucks you can get many things, but buying yourself a town sounds cool, doesn’t it? However if you have a million to spare and aren’t interested in Bridgeville, you can treat yourself to any of these:
Around 30 strains of Justin Bieber’s hair, provided that he would be interested
368097 meanings of life from the North Carolina man
Just buy Bridgeville, it’s been on sale for years now
2) A Meteorite From Mars
A 188-grams heavy meteorite piece from Mars was auctioned and sold for $450,000 on eBay in 2003. The rare meteorite is 1.3 billion years old, and is one of 130 chunks of Mars that ever landed on Earth. As such a rarity, it’s obvious that it has a high value. And indeed, after being auctioned by Sell2All Inc., a buyer cashed out close to half a million dollars for the piece. $450,000 can get you many things, but how many people can say that they own a piece of another planet?
1) Half-Eaten French Toast
In 2000, a half-eaten French toast was actually sold at eBay for just over $1000. What gives? Well, it wasn’t an ordinary toast. You see, half of it was eaten by no one other than Justin Timberlake. He was doing an interview in the studio of NY’s Z-100 radio station where he was also enjoying a French toast. He didn’t finish his meal, so the DJ took the opportunity and auctioned the toast on eBay. It was sold for $1,025 to one of Timberlake’s fans, Kathy Summers, who was a 19-year old student at the time.
Instead of a half-eaten sandwich, here are some things you can buy for the inflation-adjusted amount of $1,400 today:
36 French toast makers so you’re force to eat Timberlake’s leftovers
Almost 13 Justin Timberlake posters to look at while eating the toast
Other Weird Listings
A man was looking to give his “idiot” dog to anyone who wanted it.
Another man was looking to give out a human sized hamster wheel so much that he wrote the entire ad in CAPITAL LETTERS.
A human soul for holiday gifts? Sounds like a deal!
“There are a lot of questions out there and I don’t have any of the answers,”—eBay CEO Devin Wenig, Goldman Sachs Technology And Internet Conference, 10 Feb. 2016.
2016 Second Quarter Sales: EBAY +3%; AMZN +31%—LOL …
Fortunately, it’s otherwise always been easy to tell when an eBay spokesperson is being disingenuous—their lips are moving …
And, notwithstanding the constant stream of disingenuous and delusional nonsense that flows from eBay/PayPal, the share price history of these two clunky operators demonstrates the reality:
PayPal is still standing still, and eBay has for years been effectively going backwards.
Notwithstanding the “spin-off” of PayPal from eBay, eBay and “PreyPal” remain effectively joined at the hip—for at least the next five years—and anyone that thinks otherwise is simply uninformed; and, thanks to a continuation of most of the destructive policies introduced over the eight year reign (2007–2015) of the “Pain from Bain”, John Joseph Donahoe II, the eBay marketplace is continuing on its slow journey down the toilet; nevertheless, during Johnny Ho’s occupation of the eBay corner office, this cretin and his gang of hand-picked Keystone Kops still managed to obtain for themselves massive, unearned, “performance” bonuses—while the company’s shareholders received not one penny.
PayPal’s one-time adoptive parent, eBay, is likely the most unscrupulous commercial entity operating on this planet; but, have no fear, eBay is an equal-opportunity fraudster; demonstrably, they will knowingly aid and abet the defrauding of buyers by unscrupulous eBay merchants who bid on their own auctions, and, conversely, of honest sellers by unscrupulous buyers—as long as there is a financial benefit in such fraud for eBay.
eBay’s auction format has been atrophying ever since 2008 when the cretinous Johnny Ho further anonymized bidder IDs to better hide, and further aid and abet, demonstrably rampant shill bidding fraud on consumers by unscrupulous sellers. As time has passed, fewer and fewer people remain naïve enough to still believe that, contrary to its claims, eBay has ever had any intention of protecting consumers from such rampant auction fraud—from which eBay profits. eBay is not concerned about “fraud” unless it directly impacts eBay; eBay has only ever been interested in their FVF, regardless of whether or not the transaction is a fraudulent one. And, a few years ago, eBay raised their final valuation fee (FVF) to 10%, and also removed the fee tiers that moderated the fee paid on higher value items. And so, eBay as a whole has likewise, and deservedly, continued to atrophy.
In early January eBay invited consumers to auction their unwanted Xmas gifts on eBay. And, if you didn’t know what your unwanted gift may be worth, eBay’s advice was to start the auction at 99c and watch the fun—as your item likely sold for 99c—always presuming you weren’t bidding on the auction yourself (and assuming that you or anyone else was able to find the listing in eBay’s manipulated search), in which case you would likely finish up buying it yourself; but that’s OK with eBay too; they don’t mind whether the sale is real or faux, as long as they get their final valuation fee.
eBay’s “sell through” rate is now so abysmally low that in their “Completed Listings”, whereas they show “sold” items for 90 days, they now show “unsold” items for only 30 days, and that even after they had earlier stopped indicating unsold items in “red” because it looked like too much blood in the water! Which invites the question, how can you tell when eBay is being disingenuous? Their lips are moving …
The eBay executive suite—where the incompetent mingle with the disingenuous, the unscrupulous, the malevolent, the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid. …
For a detailed analysis of the ugly reality of eBay’s demonstrable, calculated, facilitation of endemic shill bidding fraud on consumers on its auctions marketplace, Google “Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #5”
“There are a lot of questions out there and I don’t have any of the answers,”—eBay CEO Devin Wenig, Goldman Sachs Technology And Internet Conference, 10 Feb. 2016.
2016 Second Quarter Sales: EBAY +3%; AMZN +31%—LOL …
Fortunately, it’s otherwise always been easy to tell when an eBay spokesperson is being disingenuous—their lips are moving …
And, notwithstanding the constant stream of disingenuous and delusional nonsense that flows from eBay/PayPal, the share price history of these two clunky operators demonstrates the reality:
Aug 2007: (pre John Donahoe) EBAY ~$40; AMZN ~$40;
Jul 2015 (pre eBay-PayPal split): EBAY ~$66; AMZN ~$480;
Jul 2015 (post-split): EBAY ~$28; PYPL ~$37; AMZN ~$530;
Recently: EBAY ~$31; PYPL ~$38; AMZN ~$765—LOL …
PayPal is still standing still, and eBay has for years been effectively going backwards.
Notwithstanding the “spin-off” of PayPal from eBay, eBay and “PreyPal” remain effectively joined at the hip—for at least the next five years—and anyone that thinks otherwise is simply uninformed; and, thanks to a continuation of most of the destructive policies introduced over the eight year reign (2007–2015) of the “Pain from Bain”, John Joseph Donahoe II, the eBay marketplace is continuing on its slow journey down the toilet; nevertheless, during Johnny Ho’s occupation of the eBay corner office, this cretin and his gang of hand-picked Keystone Kops still managed to obtain for themselves massive, unearned, “performance” bonuses—while the company’s shareholders received not one penny.
PayPal’s one-time adoptive parent, eBay, is likely the most unscrupulous commercial entity operating on this planet; but, have no fear, eBay is an equal-opportunity fraudster; demonstrably, they will knowingly aid and abet the defrauding of buyers by unscrupulous eBay merchants who bid on their own auctions, and, conversely, of honest sellers by unscrupulous buyers—as long as there is a financial benefit in such fraud for eBay.
eBay’s auction format has been atrophying ever since 2008 when the cretinous Johnny Ho further anonymized bidder IDs to better hide, and further aid and abet, demonstrably rampant shill bidding fraud on consumers by unscrupulous sellers. As time has passed, fewer and fewer people remain naïve enough to still believe that, contrary to its claims, eBay has ever had any intention of protecting consumers from such rampant auction fraud—from which eBay profits. eBay is not concerned about “fraud” unless it directly impacts eBay; eBay has only ever been interested in their FVF, regardless of whether or not the transaction is a fraudulent one. And, a few years ago, eBay raised their final valuation fee (FVF) to 10%, and also removed the fee tiers that moderated the fee paid on higher value items. And so, eBay as a whole has likewise, and deservedly, continued to atrophy.
In early January eBay invited consumers to auction their unwanted Xmas gifts on eBay. And, if you didn’t know what your unwanted gift may be worth, eBay’s advice was to start the auction at 99c and watch the fun—as your item likely sold for 99c—always presuming you weren’t bidding on the auction yourself (and assuming that you or anyone else was able to find the listing in eBay’s manipulated search), in which case you would likely finish up buying it yourself; but that’s OK with eBay too; they don’t mind whether the sale is real or faux, as long as they get their final valuation fee.
eBay’s “sell through” rate is now so abysmally low that in their “Completed Listings”, whereas they show “sold” items for 90 days, they now show “unsold” items for only 30 days, and that even after they had earlier stopped indicating unsold items in “red” because it looked like too much blood in the water! Which invites the question, how can you tell when eBay is being disingenuous? Their lips are moving …
The eBay executive suite—where the incompetent mingle with the disingenuous, the unscrupulous, the malevolent, the outright criminal, and the just plain stupid. …
For a detailed analysis of the ugly reality of eBay’s demonstrable, calculated, facilitation of endemic shill bidding fraud on consumers on its auctions marketplace, Google “Shill Bidding on eBay: Case Study #5”