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Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Expensive eBay items

Sometimes my students ask what the most expensive thing was that ever sold on eBay.  A little research turns up the following items:

The most expensive item till date which has ever been sold is a yacht which was bought by Roman Abramovich, a Russian billionaire. It was in February 2006 that it was bought and the total cost of it was $168,000,000.00. The yacht had a retractable elevator, helicopter garage, eight guest cabins, 10 multi-level VIP Suites, fitness room, cinema room, salon and luxury office area. The sale of this yacht breaks the record set by Gulfstream II jet which was sold for $4.9 million.

Besides the ned yacht, there are several items which are declared as some of the most expensive. The most valuable baseball bat which has ever been sold is that of Joseph Jefferson Jackson, (who was known as Shoeless Joe). His bat was sold for $577,610; it was a handmade hickory bat. It weighed more than 40 ounces, which is heavier than many of the bats used today. He was one of the most famous baseball players of all times, known for his perfect swings.

One of the other most expensive items on eBay is the Harley Davidson sold by Jay Leno, the television host and stand-up comedian. It's said that he raised $800,100 which was used to help the victims of the tsunami of 2004.

Pope Benedict XVI sold his Volkswagen Golf automobile in May 2005 for €188,938.88. It was sold in the German webpage of eBay and is considered one of the most costly purchases in eBay. The GoldenPalace.com, an online casino placed the winning bid.

A surprise sale was a Cathedral pickle bottle for just $3.00. This jar of pickles was in the shape of a cathedral and was bought at a garage sale. The surprise is that this item was so rare that there were only five of these cathedral shaped glass bottles in the world. Later on it was sold for over $44,000.

In June of 2008 a charity auction raised $2.1 million.  It was for a chance to have lunch with Warren Buffett, who donated the money to a homeless charity. 

One of the most outrageous and expensive bids which was placed in eBay was of a human kidney. The description read that a functional kidney was for sale and the buyer could choose the kidney which he or she wanted. The buyer had to pay all the medical and transplant costs. It's illegal to transplant human organs for sale and so this sale was blocked. However, the bid amount reached more than $5 million. 

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