The Eiffel Tower
The Eiffel Tower was sold, and not its original commissioning for the World’s Fair. One of the biggest sham sales of all time was completed by one Vistor Lustig. From his tower-selling exploits, Victor Lustig earned an awesome (if slightly long-winded) nickname: ‘The man who sold the Eiffel tower — Twice.’ You know you’re a badass when your nickname consists of two conjoined sentences.
It went down like this: despite Paris’ 1920s post-war boom, the city was having trouble maintaining its famed tower; painting it cost a fortune and it was beginning to fall into a state of disrepair. Here’s where Lustig stepped in. He contacted a consortium of France’s most powerful scrap metal dealers, and pitched them his story – that the Tower would be dismantled and sold off, and that he had the proprietor’s rights to choose its buyer. Not only did one of his marks bite, he also threw in a bribe to secure the deal. Lustig was eventually found out, but long after he made off with the cash. He later returned to France, and sold the damn tower all over again. Lustig’s great ruse shows that to be a great salesman all you need is a truckload of chutzpah and the cocksure grin of a young Abe Vigoda.
First Wife’s Ashes
The idea of selling one’s wife has been a staple of hack comedy for years, but no one actually considers that it may have been based on some kind of reality. Anita Lewis gave it an interesting twist or two. It was her husband’s ex-wife that Anita was selling, a pile of ashes kept in a urn shaped like a turtle.
To be fair, Anita didn’t know that the woman’s ashes were in the urn. Both she and the woman who purchased the urn from her at the whopping garage-sale price of 58 cents thought it was a cookie jar. However, the buyer’s deal contained a hidden — and morbid — surprise for her upon returning home with her prize.
Virginity
Maybe it’s the economy, but there’s been an influx of virginity-sellers over the past couple of years. The most famous is women’s studies student Natalie Dylan is one of the most famous sellers. She decided to auction off her virginity in order to pay for graduate school, attracting equal measures of praise and scorn from different groups and organizations. Dylan claims that over 10,000 men bid on her virginity, and that offers reached dizzying heights of over $3.7 million. I know ‘mint-condition’ is a great selling point, and Natalie is certainly cute, but this is going a little too far. One bidder even offered Natalie a live tiger in exchange for her first sexual foray, though it’s not clear how this would help her repay student loans. Perhaps she could let it loose in the student loan center for a good ol’ mauling session.
JFK ‘Shooter’s Perch’ Window
This is the original window and frame from which Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed John F Kennedy, the 35th President of the United States — proving definitively that to assassinate a president all you really need is a gun, and a lot of stealth. The window sold for the ridiculous price of $3,001,501 on February 16th 2007. To put this in perspective, the ham sandwich that killed Mama Cass only managed to fetch a measly $29.50. Three million dollars is a pretty large fortune for a silly old window.
Virgin Mary Grilled Cheese
It seems that the most absurd items fair so well on Ebay, and sacrilicious grilled cheese bearing the toasty brown likeness of the Virgin Mary is no exception — it sold for an amazing $28,000 to Golden Palace Online Casino. The sandwich was discovered by Florida native Diana Duyser, who says she believes whole-heartedly in the holy nature of the grilled cheese. She only took one fleeting bite before realizing that the Madonna was staring back at her… Either that or she accidentally used Gruyere instead of American. The power-hungry Golden Palace Casino snatched it up after having purchased a slew of wacky items from the depths of Ebay-land, and this will by no means be their last appearance on this list.
Meaning of Life
What would you be willing to pay for the meaning of life? Ten thousand dollars? One hundred thousand? How about $3.26 with free shipping (US only)? This enigmatic ‘item’ appeared on Ebay and despite its high level of promise, it only received eight bids, the highest of which was only teetering around the Happy Meal level.
Britney Spears’ Gum
You can call this princess of pop whatever horrible names you can think of, but we bet her garbage is worth more than some people’s most prized possessions. Britney Spears has been known to partake in quite a bit of gum gnawing action, perhaps in a cleverly subtle reference to the ‘bubblegum pop’ styling of her first smash, ‘Hit Me Baby One More Time,’ … But more likely because when your mouth is full, you’re far less likely to say something retarded.
How much is a piece of rubber chewed at a London hotel by a once-attractive, now-fading pop star worth? Apparently substantially more than that elusive Meaning of Life. More, in fact, by a factor of 80 – the item sold to a lucky (read: creepy) bidder for a sum of $263. Sounds like the beginning of a beautiful stalker-ship to us.
Girlfriends
The female practice of selling one’s girlfriend-status online, like selling one’s virginity, is becoming increasingly popular. Unlike the aforementioned practice, however, the buyer will not get the chance to do the no pants dance with the seller, but instead will get all the other fabulous perks of a relationship — including love letters, photos, and cyber-nagging. Who wants all that tedious sex and gross physical contact when you can just pay someone to pretend they like you? Now that’s just pathetic.
Raccoon Penis
Remember how when you were a kid everyone loved saying the word ‘boner’? Soon after would come that life-changing moment when you were told that this word was a complete misnomer for human genitalia. But Raccoon’s (and many other mammals) don’t, because they seriously do have a bone in their penis. How much does a penis bone (baculum) fetch? Well, if you you were lucky enough to stumble across Baculumdude’s Ebay listings before he deleted his profile, you could pick one up for less than five dollars. Traditionally, they were used by sailors and woodsmen as toothpicks, though you’d think there’d be other bones higher on the list of things one would want to put into his or her mouth.
So do your research, figure out which animals have this extra bone so next time someone rebukes you for referring to a whale’s ‘boner’, you can throw it right back at them, baculum style.
Used Breast Implants
A pretty self-explanatory item title: they’re breast implants. They’re used. In short, they have been inside the general mammary region of a woman, removed, and put up for auction. Perhaps by a creep, perhaps by someone who takes the concept of recycling to its limits. The woman selling the item, who only goes by Janine, understandably blacks out her face in the ad. It’s unknown what her discarded funbags eventually sold for, but we’re pretty sure she would’ve gotten a lot more bang for her buck had she gone ahead and revealed herself. If you’re stooping that low, there’s no need to be embarrassed anymore.
Bronze Crap (Literally)
How much would you pay for poop? Wait! The poop is made of bronze. Still no? How about if it’s an exact molding of the first bowel movement of famed uber-infant Suri Cruise?! Does that change your tune? Yeah, didn’t think so. The old adage says you can’t polish a turd, but artist Daniel Edwards obviously doesn’t give a crap about adages.
There’s no prize for guessing who bought this beautiful piece of ‘art’ — It was GoldenPalaceCasino.com, who shelled out $10,000 for the fossilized fecal matter. It’s nice to know that even with all the strict scientologist rules surrounding birthing practices that parents can still feel free to commission a work from their child’s crap.
Penis Tattoo
GoldenPalace.com, masters of self-promotion, paid a Utah woman $10,000 to tattoo their domain name on her forehead, which (to be honest) is a bit expensive for a billboard in Utah. Many others have flocked to the internet, trying to sell various patches of flesh to hungry advertisers. One man has gone as far as to offer up his penis as prime advertising real estate, though he doesn’t include it’s size in the description. In what can only be called a beautifully ironic twist, he also reserves the right to refuse any designs he considers immoral or offensive.
Serial Killer Fingernails
Roy Norris was a serial killer who, with his buddy Lawrence Bittaker, raped and murdered five young women in the late seventies before being eventually caught and sentenced. If you though some of the other items on this list were creepy, the fingernail shavings that Norris taped to the back of a Christmas card take things to a whole new level. Sure, they only sold for a paltry $9.99, but still, someone actually went to the trouble of bidding on them, and presumably has them in their possession right now. Our only hope is that that person is another Norris – Chuck – and that he plans to return Roy’s flakey nails personally, along with a devastating outward crescent kick to the scrotum.
A Child’s Name
They say good things come in threes, and maybe horrible ones do as well. Golden Palace Online Casino actually bought the rights to name a child. On April 30th, 2005 Golden Palace Heuschkel was born. It has a certain ring to it, like the ring of a slot machine paying out. Her mother, Melissa, placed the rights to name her child on Ebay, and bidding went out of control, with out friends at GP emerging as the eventual (and inevitable) winners. The winning bid was a measly $15,500, which, according to out calculations, is exactly enough for eight years of psychological counseling. That’s not even enough to pay for a full year of college.
Cunt Coloring Book
The year was 1989 – George H. W. Bush took over as President, the Berlin Wall finally fell, and Tee Corinne’s seminal Cunt Coloring Book was released. This was a ground-breaking moment: for the first time in history a coloring book featuring vulvas and their cohorts saw the light of day.
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