Christopher Cihlar - The Grilled Cheese Madonna and 99 Other of the Weirdest, Wackiest, Most Famous eBay Auctions Ever

For Kalinka and Shay

Introduction

O ver the years eBay has become one of the most successful Internet-based businesses, and every day millions of people from around the world buy and sell almost everything imaginable via the online auction site. Occasionally one of these auctions captures the attention of the general public, reaps financial windfalls for owners of seemingly worthless items, and makes some sellers household names. What American does not know of whom you speak when you say, The Wedding Dress Guy? Now, through careful study of the ten lessons presented on the pages that follow, you too have the opportunity to learn how to achieve fame and fortune by hosting your own eBay sale!

Have you always wanted to appear next to Jay Leno on The Tonight Show but have thus far failed to attract his attention? Then this book is for you. From the Ghost in a Jar auction that recorded more than a million page views (number of times the auction was seen by an eBay user), to the seller who offered the raft he claimed had carried Elian Gonzalez to the United States, to the attempted sale of a human kidneythis book chronicles the one hundred most famous eBay listings and is peppered with helpful hints about how you can best go about making your own auction a vehicle for fame and fortune.

The auctions presented in The Grilled Cheese Madonna are sometimes bizarre, sometimes politically motivated, but all were, for some reason or another, newsworthy. For the first time ever, the most famous eBay auctions and the stories behind them are presented in one place.

T he first thing any career counselor or self-help guru will tell you is that the key to success in life is learning how to sell yourself. Some of the authors of the most noteworthy and notorious eBay auctions took that advice literally. From the man who put his own kidney up for sale to the woman who auctioned off her virginity, one of the most established strategies for attracting significant media attention to an auction is to try to sell something you were born with.

The auctions presented in this section highlight some of the more creative ways people have sought to market pieces of themselves. Is there a vital organ you are not using that someone else might find essential? Have you been looking for the opportunity to part with your precious virginity? Are you willing to part with your soul, or would you prefer simply to walk around town with an advertisement plastered to your forehead? Get creative! The auctions described on the following pages are meant to inspire, and you need not be limited by what has already been done.

A word of caution, though: eBay often frowns upon these types of sales. The company has established a set of regulations that prohibit selling many of your most valuable assets. You should also check the laws that are applicable to your particular situation, as several of the auctions depicted in this section are not only against eBay policy, but also illegal.

Still, even if your auction is against formal eBay policy, take heart. It may generate sufficient publicity so that should eBay take down your listing, you will be able to continue the auction outside of eBays domain, as a couple of more ambitious sellers discussed in this lesson did. Remember, millions of items are listed for sale on eBay every week. If you hope to have success in this competitive arena, you need to be willing to do what the other guy is not.

YOUR AD GOES HERE: PART I

Advertisers are always looking for new and innovative places to market their products. While television, radio, and print ads are the most common, you can find advertisements almost anywhere you look. From the subway to the elevator to the golf course, companies seek out previously untapped venues where they can place an ad that will garner as much attention as possible. In early 2005, eBay helped one entrepreneurial young man open a previously untapped market: the human forehead.

Twenty-year-old college student Andrew Fischer from Omaha, Nebraska, offered the highest bidder in eBay auction number 5950507719 the opportunity to have their nonpermanent logo or brand name tattooed to his forehead for thirty days. According to the auctions description, this Average Joe would display the winning bidders advertisement in all types of venues that the Average Joe frequented in his hometown of 600,000. Fischers offer turned up in news stories published far from his native Omaha. The auction received more than 300,000 hits and recorded a final sale price of $30,000.

In a seemingly unfortunate occurrence, the winning bidder never contacted the seller and Fischer was forced to resubmit the auction with controls put in place to limit who could bid. Attention the second time around was just as intense and, by the time the auction ended, 45 bids had pushed the final sale price to $37,375. The winner was Christian de Rivel, CEO of SnoreStop, an oral spray designed to help alleviate snoring.

De Rivels money seems to have been well spent. The story was picked up by media outlets all over the world, and, according to de Rivel, sales through his Web site went up fivefold in the days after the auction ended. Numerous imitators cropped up, including both a man and a woman who offered to permanently tattoo the winning bidders brand onto their foreheads. Unfortunately for these would-be advertisers, none enjoyed the same monetary success as Fischer.

YOUR AD GOES HERE: PART II

Amber Rainey was in the third trimester of her pregnancy when Andrew Fischer was receiving international news coverage for auctioning off his forehead. After seeing the astronomical price the auction commanded, she looked at her growing belly and realized she had far more advertising space there than Andrew Fischer had on his forehead. Thus auction 3869933040 was conceived.

Titled Advertising Space Available ON MY PREGNANT BELLY! Raineys auction went live on January 25, 2005. According to the description of the auction, the sellers baby was due March 21, and, as she put it, People cant help but look at a pregnant womans bump. The mother-to-be said she would not advertise anything she deemed to be offensive or put anything on her belly that would harm her or her unborn child. But, other than that, she would allow potential buyers the artistic freedom to create the advertisement of their choosing.

The auction, ending on February 5 after a one-week stint on eBay, attracted national news coverage, more than 50,000 visits, 97 bids, and a final sale price of $4,050. The winning bidder was Goldenpalace.com, an online casino notorious for its outlandish eBay buys. The casino immediately saw its advertising dollars pay huge dividends when Rainey scored an appearance on NBCs Today