The auction-based e-commerce site eBay has transformed the way consumers have gone about their online purchases. Its robust marketplace and categories have exponentially grown in the past 16 years, but the general philosophy of creating a bidding war to sell an item has largely remained the same.
During its time, eBay has sold millions of items all over the globe and has empowered everyday individuals to generate their own profit by selling new and used items on the Internet. Almost anything you can imagine has been listed on eBay’s auction platform, but here are four of the most unique items sold since its creation in 1998:
1. The original Hollywood sign:
Hollywood has long been known as the movie capital of the world, and the number of great films that have been shot, cut and produced in the Southern California sun are the reason behind that incredibly lofty title. Part of Hollywood’s fame can be attributed to the large, block-type lettering situated on Mount Lee, but the current sign isn’t the original. In fact, the first group of letters fell into the possession of a man named Dan Bliss, a 44-year-old producer and entrepreneur. In 2005, Bliss listed his prize possession on eBay and made more than $450,000 on the sale, according to CBS. Bliss originally bought the sign from a nightclub promoter in the area, who had bought it from the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce after it was torn down in the late 1970s.
2. “Four blokes and a good time”:
Late in 2006, a report came from the Sydney Morning Herald that four gentlemen in Australia were auctioning their social services on eBay and pledged to be the best mates of whomever wished to pony up the cash. The starting quote was listed at AU$0.01 and concluded at a surprising AU$1,300, according to eBay’s website. This wasn’t the first time an individual has listed themselves on the web auction platform, but it may have been the first of its kind in that not many people have had the audacity to solicit “some beers, some snags, some good conversation and a hell of a lot of laughs.” One of the men down under, named Mark, told the SMH that he was completely caught off guard by the positive response.
3. Unique hamster iCage:
Steve Jobs was still alive in 2009 when one of the most peculiar Apple products was listed on eBay, although he was probably too busy designing the latest iPod Nano to realize what was going on across the Atlantic ocean. The U.K.-based seller ak_drummer took a vintage iMac computer and created one of the world’s most unique hamster cages to date, according to the British newspaper The Telegraph.
4. The most expensive twigs ever:
Wood is a readily available commodity in most parts of the world, but eBay seller Whackychop fully embraced his username and listed six “premium twigs” for a mind-boggling $105 in April of this year, the U.K.-based The Express first reported. The seller, whose name is Babak Ganjei, created a sales pitch that even Donald Trump would find hard to dismiss. Ganjei went as far as saying that each bit of wood has personality like members of The Spice Girls. There were a grand total of 27 quotes on the pieces of wood – which reportedly came from De Beauvior Square, a part of London where terraces cost upward $1.7 million. After the sale, Whackychop posted that he was confident nobody on The Apprentice would do such a thing.
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