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In late 2004, Mary Anderson used eBay to sell her father's ghost. Her father had recently died and Mary's young son Colin was afraid that his grandfather's ghost was haunting their house. When it got to the point that Colin could no longer sleep at night and to allay her son's fears, Mary decided to auction the ghost off on eBay. As eBay requires you to sell something physical, the high bidder would receive her father's old cane as well as the ‘ghost'. She stipulated in the listing that the winning bidder would have to write her son and reassure him that his grandfather's ghost was safe and well. There were 132 bids in the auction and the winning bidder paid a final price of $65'000 (Goldenpalace.com was the high bidder they are an online casino that has achieved notoriety for their wacky eBay purchases). Mary has said that she will put the money in a college fund for Colin, who is presumably much happier now that the ‘ghost' has moved house.
In June 2005, the wife of Tim Shaw, a well-known British radio DJ, sold her husband's $50'000 Lotus Esprit sports car on eBay with a Buy It Now price of 50 pence ($1) while Shaw was still in the studio. Mrs Shaw heard him flirting with model Jodie Marsh on air, when he said he would leave his wife and two children for the model. Shaw's wife said it was the ‘final straw' and immediately listed the sports car (which he had been daft enough to buy in her name) on eBay for 50 pence, with the only stipulation being that the buyer would have to collect the car within ‘the next two to three hours before my husband gets home to find it gone and all his belongings in the street.' The car sold within 5 minutes and was collected the same day.
A 19-year old man from England sold a single cornflake on eBay for one pound and twenty pence (approx $2.50). He listed the cornflake on the site as ‘an experiment'. At first there were no bids, but within a couple of days someone had offered a penny and the bids increased until he finally sold it for one pound twenty. Apparently he received some very interesting enquiries about the cornflake: one bidder asked if it would mate safely with a Sugar Puff, while another asked if it would be sociable if it was dropped in a fish tank.