21 Most Bizarre Items Ever Sold or Listed on eBay
Since it launched in 1995, eBay has sold everything from cars to castles. It has also hosted some of the strangest listings in the history of commerce. Here are 21 that made headlines, with the prices reported at the time.
1The Virgin Mary grilled cheese
A Florida woman said she saw the face of the Virgin Mary in a ten-year-old toasted cheese sandwich, which had somehow never gone mouldy. In 2004 it sold for $28,000.
2William Shatner's kidney stone
In 2006 the Star Trek actor sold his own kidney stone for $25,000 and gave the money to Habitat for Humanity.
3The Pope's old car
A Volkswagen Golf once registered to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger sold for nearly €190,000 in 2005, shortly after he became Pope Benedict XVI.
4Advertising space on a forehead
In 2005 a young mother from Utah auctioned a permanent tattoo on her forehead to pay for her son's schooling. The winning bid was $10,000.
5A ghost in a walking cane
An Indiana mother listed her late father's cane in 2004 so that her young son would stop believing his grandfather's ghost haunted the house. It sold for $65,000.
6Lunch with Warren Buffett
For two decades the investor auctioned a lunch date on eBay to raise money for a San Francisco charity. The final auction, in 2022, went for about $19 million.
7Justin Timberlake's leftover French toast
A half-eaten breakfast the singer left behind after a radio interview in 2000 reportedly sold for about $1,000 to a fan.
8A cornflake shaped like Illinois
Two sisters found a cornflake that looked like the state of Illinois and sold it in 2008 for $1,350.
9The meaning of life
In 2000 a seller offered "the meaning of life". Someone reportedly paid a few dollars for it. History does not record whether they were satisfied.
10Ghosts in jars
Sealed jars said to contain spirits, demons or "ghost energy" have been listed again and again, some attracting bids in the hundreds of dollars.
11Haunted dolls
There is a whole category of dolls sold with stories of moving at night, whispering or changing expression. Buyers say they want the thrill; sellers are happy to oblige.
12A whole town
In 2002 the tiny town of Bridgeville, California, with its houses, post office and cemetery, sold on eBay for $1.77 million.
13Italian and Spanish hamlets
Several near-abandoned villages in rural Europe have been listed by owners hoping someone would bring them back to life, usually for less than the price of a city flat.
14New Zealand
In 2006 an Australian listed the entire country of New Zealand. Bids climbed into the thousands before eBay removed it.
15A human kidney
In 1999 someone listed a kidney; bids reportedly passed $5 million before eBay pulled the auction, since selling organs is illegal.
16A human soul
A student offered his soul in 2001. Bidding reached a few hundred dollars before eBay ended it, pointing out that it could not verify the item existed.
17Letters from the old Hollywood sign
When the original sheet-metal letters of the Hollywood sign were sold in 2005, a buyer paid about $450,000 for the set.
18A man's whole life
In 2008 an Englishman living in Australia, Ian Usher, auctioned his "life": his house, car, possessions, friends' introductions and a trial at his job. It sold for around A$400,000.
19A celebrity's used tissue
Scarlett Johansson auctioned a tissue she had used on a television chat show in 2008. It raised $5,300 for a charity that feeds hungry people.
20"Vampire killing kits"
Wooden boxes with stakes, crucifixes, holy water and pistols, often sold as 19th-century antiques. Most were assembled much later as curiosities, but they still fetch high prices.
21UFO detectors
Gadgets that promise to beep when a flying saucer is near. None has yet been proven wrong, or right.
How an online casino became eBay's biggest collector of oddities
Look again at numbers 1 to 5. The grilled cheese, the kidney stone, the Pope's Golf, the forehead tattoo and the ghost cane were all bought by the same buyer: GoldenPalace.com, an online casino. In the mid-2000s it turned weird eBay auctions into a marketing strategy. Each purchase made headlines around the world, and every headline mentioned the casino's name, which was far cheaper than buying the same exposure as advertising.
The casino went further, paying people to tattoo its web address on their bodies and sponsoring streakers who ran onto pitches and into swimming pools at major sporting events with its name painted on their skin. It was cheeky, sometimes controversial, and it worked: for a few years it was one of the best-known gambling brands on the internet. Online gambling marketing has become far more regulated since then, and much of it now runs through affiliate websites rather than stunts; we explain how that money flows in Casino Affiliate Sites vs AdSense. For the machines behind those online casinos, see the technology behind modern slots and online casinos.
