17 Weird, Wacky and Downright Strange Things Sold on eBay

Where can you sell off your entire life, buy a whole town and populate it with ghosts? Why, eBay, of course! Since the site’s inception in 1995, eBay has been the middle man for countless listings. And while most of those listings are for something like a nostalgic toy from your childhood, or a custom cover for your smartphone, others are for some weird stuff. Some very, very weird stuff. Like these 17 items.

Drake, the multi-millionaire rapper and Toronto Raptors ambassador, is known for his sideline antics at NBA games. But he really upped his troll game during Game 1 of the 2019 NBA Finals. He showed up to the court wearing a Dell Curry jersey and then surreptitiously picked a sliver of lint out of Warriors point guard Steph Curry’s hair while the two talked smack (Dell Curry is Steph Curry’s father, who played for the Raptors). Drake set the exchange to dramatic music and posted it on his Instagram, and said he would be auctioning off the curious Curry lint on eBay.

Alas, Drake never actually put the lint up for sale under his eBay profile draymondshouldntwear23, which was created the night of the hair picking. Instead, over 200 eBay users jumped on the chance to troll Curry and the Warriors by using Drake’s Instagram photo to profit. Some tried selling $100 shirts, a photo of Drake’s hand with the lint or just stuck the “draymondshouldntwear23” name into their listing for views.

But one user — presumably the first — managed to get 180 bids with a going price of $99,900 but was sure to add that the lint was just a “replica.” While we doubt anyone will actually pony up that money, this new piece of eBay history was just too entertaining to ignore.

Decades ago, baseball legend Joe DiMaggio sold his crypt to a man named Richard Poncher. Poncher then made it one of his dying wishes to be buried face down, so he may gaze eternally at the plot below him, which belongs to Marilyn Monroe. Poncher passed away in 1986.

In 2009, his wife, Elsie Poncher, needed to pay off the mortgage, so she put her dead husband’s plot up for sale on eBay for $500,000. The bidding wars were ferocious, leaping into the seven figures, until they finally rested at $4.6 million. But the winning bidder never paid up. Nor did the next bidder, or anyone at all; no one even tried to purchase the plot for the starting bid. The whole thing fell through.

“They were all phony balonies,” Elsie told the Los Angeles Times.

Poncher is still buried above Monroe. Hugh Hefner moved in next door after he passed away in 2017; he had purchased the plot adjacent to Monroe in Pierce Brothers Westwood Village Memorial Park for $75,000 in 1992.

In 2003, a curious jar, which looks like something inspired by the “The Blair Witch Project,” appeared on eBay. The seller wrote that they were using a metal detector in an “old abandoned cemetery” and came upon a wooden box. Inside were two glass jars and a journal, but the seller broke one! And a “black mist or something seeped out.” Later that night, this poor seller was attacked by “The Black Thing,” a malevolent black spirit that occasionally appears when the jar is near.

Along with this sale, which started at $99, came a few black and white photos and their best recollection of what remained in the journal, because faking an old journal is more expensive than just printer paper. The ghost jar went viral, and received numerous fake bids which stretched up to eBay’s then-maximum rate of $99.99 million, until finally settling on the winning bid of $50,922. The buyer never paid up.

In 2004, a 6-year-old boy was convinced that his grandfather’s ghost was haunting him, so his mother placed his walking cane on eBay, assuring the young boy that his grandfather’s spirit would follow the cane to the winning bidder. The haunted cane did come with one stipulation — that the new owner write a letter to the boy, telling him that his grandfather “is there with you and you’re getting along great.”

The cane sold for $65,000 (about $84,000 today). The winning bidder? None other than GoldenPalace.com, the gambling site notorious for buying up oddities in exchange for free press.