Hitler's Gun

A rare German gun that may have belonged to Adolph Hitler -- allegedly taken as a souvenir 60 years ago when U.S. forces captured one of his secret hideaways -- could fetch thousands of dollars in an online auction next month, organizers said.

No one knows for sure whether Hitler owned the Krieghoff Drilling combination shotgun and rifle engraved with the initials "A.H." It is to be sold by Midwest Exchange, a Bloomington pawn shop, at auction at www.gunbroker.com.

Randall Gibson, author of The Krieghoff Parabellum, a reference book on the gun maker, said the gun likely is authentic. The company gave engraved guns to Hitler and other high-ranking German officials as it sought military contracts before World War II.

The gun's unnamed owners, who live in central Illinois, will donate net proceeds of the auction to the Anti-Defamation League, a group that combats anti-Semitism and bigotry, said Midwest Exchange owner Wes Lane.

A league official said Friday that the organization welcomes donations but would rather the owners donate the gun to a museum where it could be preserved and safeguarded.

"When you auction it off you never know who might buy it. ... We prefer it not fall into the hands of people who praise or laud Hitler, because there certainly are still people out there who do that," said Adam Schupack, associate director of the league's Chicago office.

The gun likely would sell for at least $7,000 without a connection to Hitler, and there's no telling how that possible link might drive up the price, Lane said.

"Twenty, 30, 40, 50 thousand? I don't know," Gibson said.

Lane said the online auction will begin Jan. 30 and will run at least 15 days.

According to the gun's owners, Lane said, the weapon was taken as a souvenir when Hitler's hideaway in the Bavarian Mountains was seized in May 1945 by the U.S. Army's 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment, profiled in the HBO cable TV miniseries "Band of Brothers."

The paratrooper later sold the gun to an Army lieutenant who was unaware of the connection to Hitler, Lane said. The soldier settled in Illinois and kept the gun under his bed for years, taking it out only occasionally to hunt. He died more than a decade ago, and his family no longer wants the gun.

Stuffed Horse

Who in the hell would want this thing?

eBay Description:
This is a full-sized, authentic stuffed horse. Real animal hair, hooves, mane, tail. Stuffed in a very unusual position. Measures approximately 60" x 36" x 75" Free standing, doesn't need pedestal. Old style taxidermy, not done anymore. Highly unusual prop for stage or theatre, wonderful gift for horse-lover, conversation piece for living room, unique and rare. Chestnut color, black mane and tail. Front right leg is missing, approximately 3". Some tears in skin - approximately 5-10, no longer than 1". Two tears in back, approx. 8". More pictures on request. Contact seller for shipping fees.

Check it out over here.

Apple Newton Museum

I didn't even know there *was* a Newton Museum, but apparently there is... and they are selling everything as a package deal. I wonder if anyone ever came to visit the "museum". hah

Check it out over here.

Exclusive Britney Spears Honeymoon Photos

80 supposedly exclusive pictures from Britney Spear's wedding is for sale right now on eBay.

Opening bid is $3,000 (no bids yet) with 5 days left on the auction.

You can check it out over here.

Long Beach Toyota Celebrity Race

If you've ever wanted to hang out with some movie, TV and sports stars for a weekend - and turn some hot laps in a race car against them while you're at it! - now's your chance.

Starting January 16, 2006 a spot on the starting grid for the 30th Anniversary Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race - part of the April 7-9, 32nd Annual Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach - will be up for bid on eBay, with bidding scheduled to run through January 26. All proceeds from the auction will go to the Grand Prix Foundation of Long Beach, which, since its inception in 1991, has donated more than $1.8 million to Southern California charities.

High bidder will be behind the wheel of a new, race-ready Toyota Scion tC, hitting more than 100 mph in the 10-lap sprint over the legendary 1.97-mile, 11-turn Long Beach street circuit, running fender-to-fender with a group of to-be-announced celebrities from movies, TV and sports, as well as professional drivers.

Past celebrities in the race have included George Lucas, Cameron Diaz, Gene Hackman, Patrick Dempsey, Jay Leno, John Elway and Ashley Judd, along with professionals Danica Patrick, Scott Pruett and Parnelli Jones.

The high bidder also receives, courtesy of Toyota Motorsports USA:

• Four days of professional driver's training at Fast Lane Driving School, Rosamond, CA,
  
• Pre-event Press Day prior to race weekend and other media activities,
  
• Custom-made driving gear, including suit, shoes, gloves and helmet,
  
• First-class air fare and hotel accommodations for training, press day and race weekend, with ground transportation for race related events only,
  
• A $5,000 donation from Toyota in the high bidder's name to "Racing for Kids," a national program benefiting two children's hospitals in Southern California, and
  
• A VIP pass for 2 for a private celebrity event immediately following the Saturday, April 8.

"There are millions of people in this country who have always wanted to drive a race car," said Rick DuRee, president of the Grand Prix Foundation of Long Beach. "Thanks to Toyota Motorsports, USA, they now have an opportunity to do just that with this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

"And, perhaps most importantly, all proceeds from the winning bid will go to the Grand Prix Foundation which, since its inception, has contributed nearly $2 million to charitable organizations in the greater Long Beach area."

High bidder must attend four days of driver training in March, either on two consecutive weekends (March 4-5 and March 11-12) or for four consecutive days, March 9-12.

The Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race will take the green flag on Saturday, April 8, part of a weekend of racing that also includes the Champ Car World Series, a Drifting challenge, Champ Car Atlantics and the debut of the fast Daytona Prototypes of the Grand American Rolex Sports Car Series.

Beginning January 9, those interested can become pre-qualified to bid on the Toyota Pro/Celebrity Race package by going to www.ebay.com/toyotagrandprix.

Bambi In A Bottle

Hmmm... interesting.

Bambi in a bottle is a preserved deer fawn in a one gallon jar. This fawn is the real deal. If you didn't get your deer this hunting season, don't worry, bring yours home in a bottle. "Bambi In A Bottle" for the unlucky hunter or discriminating collector. Not for human consuption.


The high bid is currently $76, with about 24 hours left to go.

Check it out over here.

Microsoft Security Flaw For Sale On eBay

Microsoft's crack team of counterfeit scouts must have been in for a shock if they were scouring eBay recently and came across a certain item selling for around $60.

The online auction site last week pulled an auction for a security vulnerability in Microsoft's Excel spreadsheet program, offered by a seller under the moniker 'Fearwall'.

The flaw had apparently been reported to Microsoft on 6 December, but has yet to be addressed by the company. The problem is reported to lie in the way the application handles certain types of data and affect all versions of the program.

A starting bid of 1 cent was described as a fair price for Microsoft products by the seller, who also offered a discount to Microsoft staff who quoted the reference 'LINUXRULZ'.

Microsoft has said that it is not aware of any attacks using the flaw described in the listing and that it is working with eBay on deciding the appropriate action to take with the seller.

Echo Bay, California

Did you know that eBay was going to be called "Echo Bay"? Except the domain was already taken, so they took their second choice (eBay.com).

http://news.softpedia.com/news/eBay-Turns-Ten-Happy-Birthday-7502.shtml

$1M Paid For Xbox 360

Wlel, I think the Xbox 360 stupidity has reached a new height. Someone paid $1M for an Xbox 360 (okay, it was for charity, but STILL).

Check it out over here.

Xbox 360s

Okay, I can't even begin to tell you how much stupidity there is going on surrounding the new Xbox 360 machines. Supposedly they sold out on the first day and there aren't going to be anymore available for the holiday season. So what does this mean? It means people are getting upwards of $5,000 on eBay for an Xbox 360 that they paid $400 for.

Uhm, dumb.

Hollywood Sign

You can own original famous Hollywood sign if you want. There is no reserve, and the opening bid is $300,000.

No clue what anyone would possibly do with it, but whatever... you can check it out here.

Eat Your Own Eyeball

Dude, this fruit-loop is auction off a video of him eating his own eyeball as a publicity stunt.

Quote: "I will keep My EYE. It will just be relocated. In My stomach"

Check it out for yourself over here.

eBay Ending Developer Fees

Rumor has it that eBay is announcing the end of the developer fees they charge to developers that use the eBay API. They are supposed to make the annoucement later today.

DiMaggio's First Yankee Uniform

The baseball legend's 1936 New York Yankees home uniform will hit the auction block at Sotheby's New York on December 10. Both the jersey and pants of the pinstriped No. 9 uniform will be auctioned.

As a 21-year-old rookie, "Joltin' Joe," as he was known, helped lead the Yankees to the first of four consecutive World Series titles in the uniform. It is the only year that he wore No. 9. In the years to follow, he wore No. 5.

The Yankee Clipper's weathered uniform is expected to sell for an estimated $600,000, according to Lee Dunbar, director of Sotheby's Collectibles Department.

Dunbar said DiMaggio memorabilia is the rarest of baseball artifacts. "We know of no other rookie uniform that is as historic," she said.

For nearly 70 years DiMaggio's uniform has been collecting cobwebs in the closet of Charles "Smoke" Mason, now 89, who was a Yankee farm league pitcher in the 1930s. Yankee farm leaguers inherited the uniforms of the big league players from the previous year, and Mason was lucky enough to get DiMaggio's.

Next month's auctions also will include 349 other rare and sought-after sports memorabilia pieces, including the original plaster model sculpture of the Heisman Trophy -- expected to go for $200,000 to $300,000 -- and "Shoeless" Joe Jackson's favorite "Black Betsy" bat -- expected to fetch close to $300,000.

Dunbar said Sotheby's expects the auction sales to total about $5 million.

House For Sale: Bride Included

For sale: one house in Colorado with three bedrooms, three bathrooms … and one wife.

It's certainly one way of meeting a man. A jewellery manufacturer in the United States is putting her home up for sale on Ebay with the twist that she comes with it.

Deborah Hale, 48, who used her website housewithbride.com to advertise her home, said she wants to find a 40-60 year-old bidder to share it within a long-term relationship.

Ms Hale said she bought and remodelled the 1910 bungalow in Denver, Colorado but was not satisfied living alone in it and was struggling to meet Mr Right.

She said: "My attempts included dating services, blind dates and connections through friends, but I still had not met the man to build a life with.

"Finally I decided to give my best effort towards something whereby that special man could 'find me'."

The house, priced at $600,000, is fully furnished, and includes a pool table, hot tub, tanning bed, big screen television and lawn mower, with Ms Hale added in as "priceless".

Posed photographs on her website show a good-looking woman with long, blonde hair. Ms Hale claims she is "100 per cent Norwegian by heritage".

Ms Hale said that she planned to sell the house on Ebay in a non-binding transaction, meaning that she and the winner of the deal could back out if necessary, presumably if they find themselves incompatible.

Let's hope that home really is where the heart is.

eBay CEO Tops Fortune's Powerful Women List

Fortune Magazine didn't have to shop around to find the most powerful woman in the United States - she's Meg Whitman, the 49-year-old chairman and CEO of eBay.

For the second year in a row, she tops the list of the magazine's 50 Most Powerful women.

And she practices what she preaches.

She bought seven new businesses this year for a total of $1.3 billion.

In second place is Anne Mulcahy (search), 52, the chairman and CEO of Xerox (XRX), who helped boost the company's net income by 138 percent.

Making the biggest leap is Brenda Barnes (search), the 51-year-old president and CEO of Sara Lee (SLE), who rocketed to No. 3 from 39th place last year, thanks to her promotion to head the troubled $19 billion company.

Oprah Winfrey, 51, rose two positions, to No. 4, thanks to her "awesome cultural influence" as chairman of Harpo Productions, which includes her TV show with 9 million viewers a day and her latest magazine success, "O at Home."

And Martha Stewart is back in the power seat, despite being a convicted felon who served time in the slammer.

After her lies to the Securities and Exchange Commission got her kicked off the list for a year, the 64-year-old domestic diva has climbed to the No. 21 spot.

As founder of Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, "her position doesn't begin to hint at her command," Fortune says.

"Her cultural clout remains remarkable."

In ninth place is Karen Katen, 56, who heads the Human Health division of Pfizer, which produces 88 percent of revenues for the world's biggest drugmaker.

She also has been with Pfizer longer than the tenure of any other name on the list: 31 years.

Eight women have made the list every year since Fortune started it in 1998: Oprah; Katen; Hearst president Cathleen Black, 61, (No. 34); Avon CEO Andrea Jung, 47, (No. 5); Ogilvy & Mather CEO Shelley Lazarus, 58, (No. 26); MTV CEO Judy McGrath, 52, (No. 10); Time CEO Anne Moore, 55, (No. 13); and Lucent CEO Pat Russo, 53 (No. 14).

Rosewood Telephone

If you ever wanted a hand carved (dragon) rosewood telephone (with Chinese buttons), now you can have it...

Check it out over here.

Babies For Sale On eBay

A Chinese internet user set up an online auction for babies on eBay Eachnet, the China arm of C2C internet firm eBay.

The online auction was posted on October 16, offering babies younger than 100 days from central China's Henan Province, one of the country's poorer regions. Baby boys were being sold at a minimum of $3,469.64, while baby girls were being sold at a minimum of $1610.90.

The posting has since been removed, an eBay (China) official said Thursday.

Buy Your Own Search Engine

If you wanted to own your own search engine, Jux2 is for sale on eBay right now.

The reserve has been met, and the high bid is currently $26,300 (with 18 total bids). The auction closes in about a week, so I imagine it will get higher.

Check out the auction over here.

The $1,825 Atari 2600 Game

Check it out over here.

I don't even know where to begin with this one, so I'll just give you the auction description...

For sale is a copy of Pepsi Invaders/Coke Wins for the Atari 2600. This is one of the rarest Atari games ever produced. In fact, there were only 125 ever made, making it extremely rare, and extremely collectable. The game was produced and distributed only to Coca-Cola employees. I acquired my copy of this game in a bag of games purchased at a flea market, upwards of 10 years ago. It has stayed pretty much unplayed for years now, and I had no idea it was anything special until I read about it online. The cartridge is fully playable and in pretty good shape, it only has a few scuffs on the front, from normal use. The cartridge was produced with no label. I am aware that reproductions of this rare game exist, but considering the length of time I have owned the game, I have nothing but full confidence that this game is original, especially considering I would assume all reproductions of this game are a fairly new thing. I considered offering a full money back guarantee with this game to show my confidence, but it was pointed out to me that someone could switch out the inside and send it back. So, just to be safe, I am selling this cartridge AS/IS, NO REFUNDS. But I dont think that should deter anyone from bidding, because I cant imagine this one being a reproduction. Once the auction has ended, we can discuss the shipping (and insurance), I only charge actual shipping costs. Feel free to message me with any questions, I would be more than happy to help. Thank you, and happy bidding!

World's Fastest P-51 Mustang

The crew was both shocked, humored, and somewhat awed to find a true piece of air racing history for sale this week... on eBay. We're also now searching for any spare change we can find, calling our rich uncles to ask "just how they're doing", and hitting the boss up for rather substantial raises (E-I-C Note: Ah, no.)

"Dago Red", a legend among pilots and crowds alike at the Reno Air Races, is for sale. And it's for sale on -- it bears repeating -- eBay, the online auction site better known for potential low, low prices for household items, cars, jewelry, clothes, books, and Britney Spears' old bras... pretty much everything except an airplane (although there are actually plenty of those for sale on the site, too.)

But what about an airplane that features a "4000+" horsepower engine, is the current 5-time consecutive National Unlimited Class Champion, and has posted a still-unbroken record speed of 517.06 mph in the 15km category? It's no joke: the heavily-modified P-51 Mustang, built in 1982 from the wreckage of a plane originally manufactured in 1944 and is today almost unrecognizable from the original, is being sold on the online site.

And, at the current bid of $950,100, it still hasn't met the unlisted reserve price.

A little steep, perhaps -- but to be fair, the price not only includes one hot mamma-jamma of an airplane, but also the accessories necessary in keeping such an aircraft in the air, including: a 48' support trailer, two engines, a 29' RV, tug, two engine stands, and "miscellaneous parts, equipment, and supplies."

Considering that prices of authentic P-51s still hover north of $1 million -- when you can find one for sale -- this is probably an amazing deal.

While we search for wealthy benefactors, you can check out the auction for yourself at the link below. But remember, this is a serious auction, and eBay has gone after people in the past who have artificially inflated auction prices. This is no joke, so conduct yourself accordingly. Bidding is set to end on October 20 at 9am PDT.

If you can afford it, and want a unique (and very, very, VERY fast) piece of history, have at it. All we ask of Dago Red's eventual new owner is that you please remember your friends. In the meantime, we'll be bidding on the R/C powered "DAGO RED" model also for sale on the site, engine and radio not included, currently showing a price of $6.49. We can almost swing that...

Kelly Carlson Refuses To Sell Sex Doll On eBay

Actress Kelly Carlson refuses to sell the love doll modelled on her which featured in an episode of the hit TV series because she won't allow her lookalike to be violated.

The sexy 29-year-old, who plays former porn star Kimber Henry alongside Julian McMahon in the cosmetic surgery drama, prefers to keep the life-size sex toy in her lounge and it made Carlson's cleaner think she was dead.

She says, 'I became very protective of that sex doll, because it looks like me and I dont want anyone violating it. So instead of putting it on eBay kept her at home. That certainly startles visitors! When I first brought the doll home, I forgot to tell my cleaner. When she let herself in and saw it all stiff and still, she thought I'd died. She ran out of the house crying and called the police!'.

Church For Sale On eBay

A church congregation plans to sell its vacant former church on eBay to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Bidding on the former North Meridian United Methodist Church will start at $1, the Rev. Randy Davis said. Bidding will begin Monday and end Oct. 27.

Davis is pastor of Redkey United Methodist Church, which was formed in December when members of North Meridian and Main Street United Methodist churches voted to combine.

The new congregation uses the larger Main Street building in the town of about 1,400 about 15 miles northeast of Muncie.

Church members recently voted to sell the old 7,000-square-foot church, furnishings and parking lot on the online auction site. They will donate the proceeds to hurricane relief through the United Methodist Committee on Relief.

"I don't think many people have tried something like this," Davis said. "But we just thought this is the way to go. It'll widen the market for us."

Some of the old church's furnishings, including pews, will be auctioned separately.

Britney Spears' Bra

The bra was one of dozens of wardrobe items and other personal belongings that Spears put up for bid on eBay to raise money for victims of Hurricane Katrina, and bidding on the bejeweled undergarment had surpassed $60,000 before it was withdrawn on Saturday, eBay spokesman Hani Durzy said on Monday.

In a message posted on her official Web site, Spears, 23, told fans she was "concerned that some of you might be confusing this bra with something that it's not."

The message says eBay accurately described the bra as having been worn by Spears during a promotion for an HBO concert special, but "it is not the one I wore onstage during the 'Baby One More Time' performance."

"I feel the correct thing to do is remove this item from the auction because I don't want any of you to feel misled," she wrote. Spears did not explain how the confusion might have arisen.

Earlier during the auction, an eBay staffer had pulled the bra from the site after deciding that it violated company policy that bars listings for used underwear. But eBay executives later reversed the decision on grounds that the bra was really a piece of entertainment memorabilia, Durzy said.

Spears, who recently became a mother, has sold more than 60 million albums since she shot to fame in the late 1990s with her 1999 debut album "... Baby One More Time" and its hit title track, becoming a worldwide phenomenon at age 16.

With the subsequent albums "Oops! ... I Did It Again" and "Britney," Spears became the first female performer in the history of Billboard magazine to have her first three albums open at No. 1 on the U.S. pop charts.

eBay Buys VeriSign's Payment Gateway

eBay Inc. announced today it has purchased an online-payment business from Internet services company VeriSign Inc.

VeriSign has agreed to help the auction site secure transactions by supplying its customers with a two-factor authentication system.

Executives from San Jose-based eBay said the company will pay about $370 million for VeriSign's payment gateway business, which enables online merchants to process and manage electronic transactions. eBay plans to combine gateway with PayPal, its online payment service.

"VeriSign's payment gateway is a popular and market proven product that perfectly complements PayPal's existing payment services,'' PayPal president Jeff Jordan said in a statement.

The acquisition is subject to regulatory approval but is expected to close in the fourth quarter, the companies said in a statement.

As part of the partnership between eBay and Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign, eBay will buy up to one million authentication tokens. The tokens display a six-digit code that computer users must type, along with passwords, to gain access to networks. The code, which changes every minute as determined by an algorithm, is unique to each token. They are designed to deter identity theft attacks.

The tokens are expected to be made available to eBay customers on a global scale sometime next year, according to an eBay spokeswoman. She added that the company has not determined whether it will charge for the tokens.

Prince Charles' Love Letters

Love letters allegedly sent by Prince Charles to a mystery girlfriend have been put up for sale on internet auction website eBay.

The letters, owned by Los Angeles-based royal collector Alicia Carroll, were on offer on eBay.com for £34,000.

One of the letters was said to be written in June 1980 - a year before he married Princess Diana.

The other five were sent in 1976 when Charles, who was then serving in the Navy, was regularly linked with a string of women.

In the 1980 letter - said to be written on official Windsor Castle notepaper - Charles complains of his frustration with the Press and not being able to sneak ladies into his hotel room during royal tours.

He refers to the pressure on him to wed by writing: "I shall just have to get married as soon as possible and then all these people will relax a little."

Another dated July 6 1976, when he was serving on HMS Bronington, expresses his desire to meet up with a girlfriend when his ship visits Canada.

"I wish I could come roaring across the Atlantic to make you feel less lonely," the letter says.

"I do hope you will be there because it would be glorious to have a chance of being alone with you for a moment."

A seven-page letter sent two months later apologises for his failure to meet in Canada.

Terrell Owens' Championship Ring

Terrell Owens' 2004 NFC Championship ring sold for $48,200 in an online auction on Thursday.

If the winner pays up, it would be the highest price ever paid for a conference ring, according to ring expert Scott Welkowsky, owner of Out of This World Memorabilia in Mission Viejo, Calif.

In fact, Welkowsky says he has sold thousands of championship rings in his 23 years of business and the most a buyer has paid for a ring was $35,000 for a Super Bowl XXIX ring given to a San Francisco 49ers starter. In February, former Patriots backup cornerback Leonard Myers sold his Super Bowl XXXVI ring for $32,600.

"You can tell that the person buying this doesn't normally buy rings," said Welkowsky, who recently sold former Philadelphia Eagles owner Leonard Tose's 1980 NFC Championship ring for $6,500. "It's for a good cause and it's certainly a nice piece, but the diamond and gold value in this ring is worth no more than $3,000."

This is Owens' second attempt to sell the ring, with the proceeds going to victims of Hurricane Katrina. A few weeks ago, it was posted on eBay, but when bids soared to $400,000, it was decided that the auction should be pulled and bidders should be pre-approved to prevent fraudulent bidding.

"My hope is that one of you with a generous heart and hopefully a big pocketbook will see this as an opportunity to do your part to help those that have lost everything," Owens wrote on the eBay auction page.

The winner will personally receive the ring from Owens, said his publicist Kim Ethredge.

"We're happy someone found it in their heart, not only to want this treasure, but to give the money to a good cause," Ethredge said.

As a rule, conference championship rings are usually worth half as much as the value of Super Bowl ring from that same year. Conference championship rings with marquee players names on them usually sell in the $6,000 to $15,000 range, Welkowsky said.

Welkowsky said the price realized for the Owens ring could cause some players to believe their ring could also garner a similar price tag. Someone recently put up for auction a 1996 Green Bay Packers ring from Super Bowl XXXI with a minimum bid of $19,999. Welkowsky sold a 1972 Miami Dolphins "Perfect Season" Super Bowl VII ring for that price.

Owens had a contentious offseason while trying to renegotiate his contract. Despite an apparent off-the-field communication problem with Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, the two have hit it off on the field. In the first three games this season, Owens has caught 21 passes for 335 yards and has scored three touchdowns.

Voodoo Knife Holder

For all the people out there aspiring to be a crazy stabbing fool, you can now have this fancy schmancy knife holder for your kitchen.

It comes with the five knives shown as well, so you don't need to buy them separately.

Check it out over here.

eBay Motors and Google Maps

This is really a pretty slick use of the Google Map API. It lets you put in a vehicle make/model and find ones for sale on eBay based on your zip code. Just check it out...

http://www.trachtenberg.com/emgm/

Schwarzenegger on eBay - for $3.6 million

Arnold Schwarzenegger has famously asserted that he cannot be bought by donors. On Tuesday, his critics begged to differ: They briefly put the governor up for sale on auction giant eBay.

The gag, one slightly tarnished Schwarzenegger, was placed up for bid by the California Nurses Association, a labor union that has been battling and belittling the Republican governor for months, at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday. By 4:19 p.m., eBay shut down the sale.

Xbox 360 Controller

First we got limited edition E3 Xbox 360 faceplates appearing on eBay, when money starved journalists felt they must sell their free Xbox 360 memorabilia. Now an actual Xbox 360 controller has been sold. The auction closed on September 24th with the winning bidder having stumped up $91 + $10 shipping for the unreleased controller. The seller claims the item to be genuine, having received it whilst attending a developers conference. The controller also comes with a USB adapter so that it can be hooked up to a PC.

Even if the seller's story of receiving the controller at a conference is true, I highly doubt Microsoft are going to be overjoyed after seeing the controller for sale over a month before the Xbox 360's launch.

Robby Gordon's Helmet

Robby Gordon's helmet is no longer available.

Online auction site eBay pulled the item on Wednesday afternoon after bids topped $10 million.

"We do pay attention when bidding gets out of control," said eBay spokesman Hani Durzy.

The helmet was worn by Gordon during Sunday's Sylvania 300 at the New Hampshire International Speedway. An angry Gordon threw the helmet at Michael Waltrip's car after the two got into an accident. Proceeds from the helmet were supposed to generate money for the Harrah's Employee Relief Fund, which is raising money for Harrah's employees who have been affected by Hurricane Katrina.

A statement on RobbyGordon.com read: "It is our hope that the auction will resume in a relatively short period of time. Thank you for your cooperation and understanding in our efforts to raise money for the Harrah's Employee Relief Fund."

Durzy said that another reason the site pulled the auction down is because it violated eBay's charity listing policy. eBay requires that sellers either include a letter from the charity or that the organization is among eBay's list of charities.

"People started asking me almost immediately after the race if they could have my helmet, and rather than just giving it away, we'll use it to raise more money," Gordon told The Associated Press. "Obviously I'm still angry about getting wrecked intentionally, but at the end of the day I still have a house to go home to which is a lot more than a lot of people can say."

Gordon was fined $35,000 and stripped of 50 points for the incident. He was also placed on probation for the rest of the season. Gordon has reportedly made a $20,000 contribution to the Harrah's fund and is making a 10 percent contribution from the sale of Harrah's racing merchandise and collectibles on his Web site and from track-side sales.

Buy Meth Products On eBay

Federal and state authorities are investigating at least 10 eBay auctions, some Oregon-based, found last week that offered thousands of pills containing pseudoephedrine, the critical ingredient in methamphetamine.

Quantities offered far exceeded new state laws on sales of the chemical.

Three auctions continued to take bids Friday. Three others apparently were shut down either by their owners or by eBay.

Ken Magee, assistant special agent in charge of the Drug Enforcement Administration in Oregon, said the auctions "piqued our interest tremendously."

With Oregon and other states passing laws restricting the sale of pseudoephedrine in recent months, buyers and sellers are finding new ways to obtain it.

"Crooks are becoming more savvy," said Garrison Courtney, a spokesman for the Drug Enforcement Administration in Washington, D.C. "They're realizing, 'Hey, here's a way to go through a keyboard anonymously, make cash and disappear.' " For at least six months, the DEA has worked with eBay and other online retailers to stop illicit sales of pseudoephedrine, Courtney said.

Pierre Omidyar Gives $25M Grant To Tufts University

The founder of eBay Inc. and his wife, both Tufts University alumni, gave the university a $25 million challenge grant to be used for undergraduate student scholarships.

Pierre Omidyar, founder and chairman of eBay, the San Jose-based online auction company, and his wife, Pam, are making the second largest gift Tufts has received in its history. Tufts is in Medford, Mass.

The gift is a challenge grant to encourage donors to contribute to a $200 million endowment Tufts is trying to raise to make it a need-blind school. A need-blind school accepts students regardless of their ability to pay the tuition and offers financial aid accordingly.

The Omidyars have founded Omidyar Network, an investment group. Pierre Omidyar, a trustee of Tufts, earned a bachelor of science in computer science from the school in 1988. Pam Omidyar, who sits on the college's advisory board, earned a degree in biology from the school in 1989.

eBay Wants Skype

eBay has agreed to buy fast-growing Internet start-up Skype for up to $4.1 billion in cash and shares, in a move to tap new sources of growth and add free Web telephone calls to its online auctions.

eBay said on Monday it planned to pay $1.3 billion in cash and $1.3 billion in stock for the online communications company. It will make a further payout of up to $1.5 billion if certain financial targets are met.

The deal will cut eBay's earnings by about a cent per share until the end of 2006 before beginning to boost eBay's profitability, Chief Financial Officer Rajiv Dutta said.

Its shares fell 1.81 percent to $37.93 in early trading on the Nasdaq exchange, after falling 4 percent last week when investors became concerned that eBay might pay too much, giving eBay a market capitalization of about $52 billion.

eBay is renowned for its Internet marketplace linking more than 150 million buyers and sellers, who currently exchange about 5 million emails per day. It hopes that offering free Skype calls within eBay will smooth the way for more deals to go through, and let the company charge merchants for calls that lead to sales.

Skype already leads the booming voice-over-Internet (VoIP) market, which is seen as a threat to traditional phone companies and is being aggressively targeted by online powerhouses such as AOL Yahoo, Google and Microsoft.

Chief Executive Meg Whitman said that Skype had a considerable head start.

"We think Skype has an enormous lead -- 150,000 new users a day, and technology that is generations ahead of where the new entrants are," she said. "And when people are using your brandname as a verb, that is incredibly powerful."

Skype expects revenues of $60 million this year and more than $200 million in 2006, but has yet to turn a profit. In two years, Skype has attracted 54 million members to its free and low-cost Internet-based voice service and is on track to roughly double in size within a year.

Luxembourg-based Skype offers a free service when users make computer-to-computer calls to other Skype users. Charges apply when Skype users make calls to, or receives calls from, regular phone numbers.

eBay said its merchants would be able to use Skype software to allow buyers with last-minute sales questions to "click to talk" to a customer service agent.

"Once we integrate communications into e-commerce, we think that Skype is going to remove considerable friction" from the buying and selling process, Dutta told Reuters by telephone.

Skype would be the biggest acquisition yet for 10-year-old eBay and analysts said the price tag looked hefty without more details about the strategic rationale.

Nearly half Skype's users live in Europe, a quarter are in Asia and an eighth are in North America, providing eBay with a large audience as it seeks to expand outside of its core North American market.

As of October 2004, Skype had raised $24 million from several private equity firms including Mangrove Capital Partners, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, Bessemer Venture Partners and Index Ventures.

The deal provides a major payout for Skype founders Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis, who also created the controversial peer-to-peer file-trading network Kazaa.

Zennstrom and Friis, who have touted Skype as a "killer" application that could threaten entrenched players in the telecom sector, will keep their positions at the company.

Earlier this month, a local unit of a Chinese telecom company moved to block some Skype services amid reports that a broader crackdown on VoIP services was in the works.

"This is largely a rumor, and I think it's not nearly the size of the issue that was first reported," Whitman said.

Storm Water For Sale

The chance to make a quick buck from Hurricane Katrina has not escaped some, with items on eBay including a "rain-soaked newspaper" delivered on the day the storm hit the American south, jars of rainwater and a message in a bottle that supposedly led to the rescue of several families.

Among other items on sale on eBay yesterday was a scribbling that a Texan "artist" claims he drew after waking from a dream 10 days before the storm, which uncannily resembles satellite pictures of Katrina. One man, claiming to be a survivor of the catastrophe, is offering the rights to his story, starting at $12,500 (£6,800).

Various T-shirts, bumper stickers and badges are on offer, either proclaiming "I survived Hurricane Katrina" or making jokes. One reads "I went to New Orleans and all I looted was this lousy T-shirt". Another says "Disaster Relief: Get Rid of Bush".
The appearance of items on eBay aimed at ghoulish souvenir hunters has become common after disasters. Soon after the September 11 attacks, pieces of the World Trade Centre were being offered for sale. People also attempted to sell debris from the space shuttle Columbia.

The message in a bottle allegedly read "Help ... Help ... Mother-2 Children no water ... no food" and then gave an address. The seller claims to have been given the item at a reunion centre in Dallas.

A spokesman for eBay said it judged items on a case by case basis. "We have clearly defined policies on what is not allowed," he said. He would not discuss the Katrina items, but said in the case of 9/11, a newspaper from September 12 would be allowed, but pieces of debris would not.

Big Brother 6 Suitcases

Following an initial flurry of newspaper and magazine deals, those sworn enemies Lesley and Sam have been forced to put their Big Brother suitcases up for sale on eBay.

The busty Huddersfield sales co-ordinator and the scantily-clad Surrey marketing student fell out repeatedly on the show, but both will be pleased with how much the sales have raised.

Sam managing to shift her case for £3,100, while Lesley’s is up to £3,200 - and her saucy nurses outfit is also included in the deal. You can check it out here.

What will the pair splash the cash on, though? Perhaps Lesley will opt for plastic surgery in an attempt to rival Makosi and Saskia in the chest stakes, while maybe Sam will plump for a photographic portfolio to help with a possible career in lads' mags.

Bjork's Swan Dress

Internet shoppers will get a chance to add an unusual item to their wardrobe: the flamboyant swan dress worn by Icelandic singer Bjork, which will be auctioned for charity next month.

International aid agency Oxfam said Thursday the quirky dress, which the unconventional songstress wore to the 2001 Oscars ceremony, was among more than 150 celebrity fashion items that will be up for grabs on the Internet auction site eBay. The proceeds will go to Oxfam.

Bjork turned heads as she graced the Oscar's red carpet in the white dress. It features a ruffled feather skirt and an imitation swan's neck that Bjork draped around her own neck, with the bird's head resting on her breast.

Other celebrity garments and accessories in the charity auction include a screenprint shirt donated by U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Yoko Ono's sunglasses, a pair of fashion designer Stella McCartney's thigh-high fake leather boots and a mo-ped helmet used by Britpop band Blur's Damon Albarn.

The auction is being organized, in conjunction with Oxfam, by an online fashion website and an art magazine that asked celebrities to donate belongings with a story behind them. The successful bidder for each of the pieces will receive the item, as well as a copy of its accompanying story.

"We wanted people to give things that were personal and had a story behind them because bidders will then know they are getting something particularly special to the person concerned and all in aid of a good cause," said Rose Marsh, an Oxfam spokeswoman.

Marsh said she expected the swan dress to draw interest from collectors or "fashion types."

"It's the sort of thing that's kind of priceless," she said. "We don't know yet how much these items could raise but if people get involved in a bidding war over Bjork's dress then it could be quite a substantial amount."

Online bidding will be open from Sept. 18-25, coinciding with London Fashion Week.

All the money raised will assist Oxfam's general program of aid work, Marsh said.

Tiki Trailer

This is kind of cool, so I'll just take the description...

Take a look at this 100% handbuilt teardrop built last year by my wife and I, so any questions about construction just ask. It started out on an all steel custom built frame with a treated lumber sub frame with underbed storage ,three leaf springs, HD axle and 16" 1935 Ford wheels and bias ply whitewall tires. Floor and walls are birch plywood fully insulated and roof is 1/4" birch with 2x3 oak beam construction. There are doors on both sides for easy exit ( no climbing over your partner ) each with opening jealousy windows and locking handles. The kitchen has upper and lower cabinets. Large deep drawers. The counter is butcherblock formica for easy cleanup. The right lower cabinet door houses an ice chest on rollers for easy access. There is a stainless steel sink with hand pump and a 5 gallon water tank. It is wired for 12 volt with a light inside and light in the galley plus there is a fuse panel with plenty of openings for whatever else you might want to add. There is an invertor for plugging into 110, so everything will continue to operate. There are 12V and 110 outlets located inside and in kitchen. Battery in front storage for dry camping. There are 4 coats of hand laid exterior polyurithane on outside. It is 10'x4' with a sleeping lenght of 8'. Cushions are 4" foam for comfort. Interior has spacious cabinets and a pull out tray for eating, DVD or a laptop. The front of the tear opens up for ventilation. The top interior has bamboo and a playful Tiki theme paint job. The exterior roof is aluminum with rivits. This can be polished to a shiny finish if you'd like! This trailer looks vintage with its 1930 Ford fenders(steel) and model A tailights. There is a hitch in the back for a bike rack too! Built with stainless or coated screws and bolts as well as waterproof construction glue, it is not coming apart. This is a great teardrop, you won't be dissappointed. You would have a hard time finding or building a teardrop for this price. Tows like a dream!! The pictures don't truly do it justice, there are so many nice details unable to see in photos.

Price includes all Tiki kitchenware, ice chest and decorations. Does not include cookstove, tent, chairs or Ford wagon...sorry ")- Please ask all questions before bidding.

50% of purchase price due within 24hrs of purchase. Paypal preferred. Balance due upon pick up, if shipped full amount due before shipping. Buyer responsible for all shipping costs and arrangements.

Good luck and thank you for looking!!!! Please note I will be out of town until August 21st so any emails will be answered the following day.

Laughing Mannequin

This is just a freaky looking mannequin if you ask me...

GoldenPalaceCasino.com Buying More Crap

Looks like Golden Palace Casino bought more crap (specifically the M&M Wrapper and the Bandage.

What's kind of funny is I bet that they are using the costs of buying all this crap as expenses for tax write-offs.

NorgArt - Painting With Breasts

Uhm, I'll just borrow the description for this auction, because it about says it all...

The artist of the world's first piece of NorgArt is an Australian university student in her early twenties. NorgArt is created by smearing the breast with paint and shifting the canvas around the torso to create unique textures and patterns, finer detail is applied using only the nipples. The result of this sensual foray into the world of contemporary impressionism is a beautiful arrangement of flowers in hot pink, sun-kissed yellow and sultry red, and is a unique and true celebration of female beauty.

What an individual piece to add to your art collection! Will the keen eye of an admirer detect the delicate brushstrokes? Don't delay, own the world's first example of NorgArt today!

Painted in acrylic on canvas, measuring approximately 41x41cm. Will ship anywhere in the world.

M&M Wrapper

Someone has put an empty M&M wrapper (you don't even get the candy with this one). Bidding on this rare collector's item is up to $1,431 (with 42 bids).

Uhm, can I just ask *why*???

Check out the auction here.

Ariel Sharon's Bandage

The bloodstained bandage that wrapped Ariel Sharon's head after he was injured in fighting during the 1973 Middle East War has been offered on eBay, with offers invited from $10,000.

The Israeli Prime Minister, a top general on the Egyptian front, was wounded when his armoured vehicle was damaged at the Suez Canal.

You can check out the auction over here.

Medical Supplies

What I want to know is who in the hell looks on eBay for a spinal care kit or replacement knees? Does it come with a "do it yourself" book also? hehe

A hospital worker stole medical supplies such as replacement knees and a $116,000 kit for spinal care and sold many of the items on eBay, authorities said.

Those items and boxes full of forceps and other equipment were found in the home of Brian Pickens, police said.

Pickens, 31, took at least $200,000 in medical equipment from St. Mary's Medical Center and pocketed more than $12,000 from up to 200 sales on eBay since early last year, police Detective Kirk Pritchett said. The stolen goods were sold to people in the United States, Russia, Ukraine, Great Britain and Mexico, he added.

Pickens, a nurse's aide for three years, was charged Wednesday with one felony count of theft, but police said more charges were possible. Pickens' lawyer, Scott Danks, said Thursday his client acknowledged wrongdoing, but the value of the equipment was "hugely exaggerated."

Danks said Pickens bought some of the medical equipment from yard sales and online, hoping to resell it for a profit. Most items taken from St. Mary's have been returned, he said.

The $200,000 estimate on how much was stolen "will go higher," Pritchett said.

Pickens was fired Wednesday, hospital spokesman Jeff Jones said.

IRA Merchandise

Dozens of pieces of IRA memorabilia have appeared on internet auction site eBay since the terror group announced the end of its armed campaign last week.

More than 150 items have been put up for sale, including original 1981 hunger strike posters and a gun-shaped badge posted just two hours after the July 28, 4pm deadline for volunteers to dump weapons.

Second-hand books, CDs, DVDs and bumper stickers also feature in the mass sell-off by anonymous vendors in Belfast, Derry and London determined to profit from the IRA's decision to go out of business.

A May 1981 copy of Republican newspaper, An Phoblacht, which was shrunk down to be smuggled into Republican prisoners on hunger strike in the H-blocks, has been bid up to 65 euro (£40) by 13 potential buyers.

The Belfast-based seller of the item said on the site: "In this edition, there is an exclusive interview with the IRA and pictures on two pages of an IRA training camp."

A 1981 hunger strike poster featuring prisoners Bobby Sands, Francis Hughes, Raymond McCreesh and Patsy O'Hara is currently fetching bids of 59.53 euro (£37).

The vendor says: "Please no timewasters. You will get this for a bargain as I should be keeping it for next year for the 25th anniversary but it's on sale now."

The highest bid item in the IRA category is an Irish Easter Rising 1916 medal currently priced at 827 euro (£524) by 27 bidders.

A copy of Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams' memoir, Hope and History, signed by the author, has so far failed to attract any bidders.

A biography of the party's chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness entitled: IRA: From Guns To Government was put on the eBay site just five hours after the armed campaign officially ended.

Tim Pat Coogan's book, The IRA, is being offered for 10.89 euro (£6.70) by a Co Down reader.

Mr Coogan, a former Irish Press editor, said: "I'd have thought it would go for a bit more, but there you are."

Elvis' Mercedes

Gene Epstein of Wrightstown, PA, has filed a lawsuit against a man who allegedly reneged on an eBay bid for a 1969 Mercedes-Benz that was once owned by the rockabilly-country-gospel balladeer. According to a report from The Associated Press, Epstein's suit claims that Jason Shepherd of Ballston Lake, N.Y., entered a "Buy It Now" bid of $245,000 for the posh limo.

But the suit maintains that when it came time to pay, Shepherd claimed that the bid was erroneous—the result of his daughter accidentally striking a key on his computer. The lawsuit is seeking for Shepherd to pay the original bid, along with $150,000 in damages. The suit justified its raison d'etre by saying, "Once an item is removed from the active sale list on eBay and listed as sold, its reappearance on the active auction listings creates the impression that the item being sold is in some way unsaleable or unmarketable," according to the AP report.

Epstein said, however, that he would settle the case if Shepherd issues a specifically worded apology he drew up—and pays an unspecified "token" amount. The AP says that attempts to reach Shepherd and representatives from eBay for comments were unsuccessful.

Shopping.com Purchase Approved

Shareholders of Internet price-comparison company Shopping.com Ltd. approved Thursday a proposed $620 million takeover by online auction house eBay Inc.

Shopping.com expects the deal to close around Aug. 30, the company said in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing.

Shopping.com didn't disclose the vote tally at the special shareholder meeting called to consider the eBay deal.

Last month, eBay, of San Jose, Calif., agreed to pay $21 a share for Shopping.com, an Israeli operator of a Web site which allows consumers to compare product prices across the Internet.

Another shopping comparison company, Shopzilla, was acquired by E.W. Scripps Co. last month for $525 million.

Separately, Shopping.com also said in the SEC filing that shareholders approved a $1 million bonus for Chief Executive Lorrie Norrington. The bonus will be paid immediately before the consummation of the merger, Shopping.com said.

John Lennon Memorabilia

The tunic which inspired the Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album cover will be auctioned today. It is going under the hammer in a sale of John Lennon memorabilia which is expected to fetch €2m. The military band tunic, worn by Lennon in a Life magazine photoshoot in 1966, is predicted to sell for about €42,000. The tunic is said to have influenced the Sgt Pepper album cover – to which Paul McCartney’s band paid homage during a rendition of Sgt Pepper at Live 8.

The Cooper Owen auction, the biggest sale of Lennon memorabilia for 20 years, also includes Lennon’s hand-written manuscript of All You Need Is Love. The manuscript was retrieved from the stage floor directly after the Beatles’ final live TV performance in 1967.

A Yamaha electric piano given to Lennon by Elton John and an oil painting Lennon created while he was a student in Liverpool are also in the sale.

Cooper Owen managing director John Collins said: “Every item speaks for itself in terms of rarity, importance, and cultural significance. “We’re honoured to be passing them on – and the sale itself will celebrate Lennon and his legacy the way it was meant to be celebrated.” The 12 items in the sale, which also include a recording of Lennon and Yoko Ono’s children singing Give Peace a Chance, were collected over a 25-year period.

The sale takes place from 7.30pm at The Hippodrome near London’s Leicester Square.

Bill Ford Joins eBay

Bill C. Ford Jr., the chairman and chief executive of Ford Motor, has been added to online auction behemoth eBay's board, the latter said late Wednesday.

A simple addition, apparently: eBay's not replacing an existing board member, it's merely expanding the board to eleven members. "What he's done at Ford Motor Company would benefit any board. We're really pleased to have him," crowed a spokesman. Neither is there any link between eBay's auto trade and Ford's appointment.

Jennifer Aniston Love Letters

One of Jennifer Aniston's former flings is auctioning off letters, notes, pictures and other memorabilia from the Friends star.

Michael Baroni, a California lawyer who claims he had a summer romance in 1984 with Aniston, is selling keepsakes such as a makeshift birthday card she wrote on a piece of toilet paper and a childhood picture of the pair.

According to Baroni, their summer lovin'- he was 16, she was 15- turned into a longtime friendship until they lost contact in 1991, when Aniston's showbiz career began to soar.

Aniston's representative, Stephen Huvane, didn't immediately return a call today from the Associated Press for comment.

"She was very fun and lively, a loving kind of person," Baroni said during a phone interview Friday. "I think the materials show an innocent look into someone I think is very endearing."

Baroni's auction begins July 29 on eBay with a$100,000 reserve. If the reserve is not met, the package of memorabilia will be withdrawn. Baroni wouldn't comment on why he was auctioning off the items beyond citing "financial reasons."

Moshe Dayan's Eye Patch

Several items of great Israeli historical interest have been trading on the online auction site eBay. The original eye patch worn by former defense minister and chief of staff Moshe Dayan has been offered for the sum of $75,000, while a hanukkiyah (multibranched candelabra) belonging to prime minister David Ben-Gurion and made from bullet cartridges is on sale for $12,500.

These particular items are being offered by Pasarel Israeli Art and Treasures of Natanya. Moti Sander, a partner at Pasarel, said that his company specializes in Judaica and jewelry, and that he had received Dayan's eye patch from the minister's personal bodyguard, who said that he had gotten it, together with a Smith & Wesson 38 revolver, minutes after the famed warrior died in 1981.

Though Dayan's pistol appears on the eBay site, this is not for sale as the Web site forbids the trading of any arms. It is, however, for sale through Pasarel.

Ben-Gurion's hannukiyah was made for the prime minister in 1948 by workers of the Ayalon Institute, which manufactured bullets, and there is a personal inscription to the statesman on it. Sander said that he found the item in the Jaffa flea market, and that he had it authenticated by the very man who made it - now a resident in a retirement home in Tel Aviv.

Hitler Sketches and Cards

Four sketches by Adolf Hitler and two Christmas cards signed by the Nazi dictator were sold to a single buyer for an undisclosed sum, an auctioneer said on Wednesday, at an auction in Canada that drew protests.

Iegor de Saint Hippolyte, who led the private auction in Montreal Tuesday evening, would not confirm a media report citing witnesses who said the items were sold for C$32,400 ($26,800).

"I can say it's the same person that was able to obtain everything, so the collection will stay together," he told Reuters. He declined to identify the buyer or seller, or their nationalities.

The Canadian Jewish Congress called the sale offensive and deplored the fact that Hitler's four architectural sketches and greeting cards were auctioned alongside works by artists such as Andy Warhol.

De Saint Hippolyte defended his role in the auction, saying his duty is to preserve objects of historical interest. "They are extremely important items for history so there was much interest," he said.

Hitler, German chancellor from 1933 to 1945, unleashed World War II when his armies invaded Poland in 1939. His racial policies led to the Holocaust, the organized massacre of some 6 million European Jews, largely at concentration camps such as Auschwitz.

The four architectural sketches auctioned in Montreal are in charcoal, colored pencil and ink. One includes corrections Hitler is believed to have made to the design for an opera house in Linz, Austria, near where he was born, De Saint Hippolyte said.

The opera house was designed by Hitler's chief architect Albert Speer, who became Germany's wartime armaments minister. Speer was tried at Nuremberg after the war and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The two Christmas cards are dated 1935 and 1938, and bear Hitler's personal seal and signature.

eBay Has Record Quarter

Ebay - the global auction site branded an "electronic pimp" by angry popster Bob Geldof - has notched up record numbers for its second quarter.

For the three months to the end of June eBay reported record consolidated net revenues of $1.09bn - up 40 per cent year on year. At the same time it delivered record operating income of $379m - up 49 per cent on the year before. Net income was $291.6m compared to $190.4m.

In the US, revenues increased 27 pr cent to $423.6m, while takings at eBay's overseas operations grew by 51 per cent to $418.8m.

eBay's online payment service - PayPal - also saw its revenues grow by 51 per cent to $243.9m.

"eBay achieved remarkable results in Q2," said eBay chief exec Meg Whitman. "Excellent momentum in the US and Germany, as well as at PayPal, all helped deliver an impressive jump in revenues and profit."

Last month Bob Geldof, the organiser of the Live 8 gigs earlier this month, kicked off an almighty stink after complaining that tickets for the gig, which were dished out for free, were being sold on eBay.

He called eBay an "electronic pimp" and called on punters to boycott the online auction site. eBay then suffered a PR meltdown, initially resisted calls to pull the auctions before bowing to Bob's bidding.

Harry Potter Misprints

Some Harry Potter fans may have found it difficult to decipher the boy wizard's latest adventure.

An unknown number of first edition copies of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince were released with upside-down covers and sideways type.

"All the copy on the inside is printed upside down and skewed to the top," said Sorya Gaulin of Indigo Books and Music, who snapped up a defective copy of the book that she discovered in a store order.

Misprints aren't uncommon in the publishing world and even though the few defective copies are sure to draw special attention among the wizard-wild public, at least one collector says they won't amount to much more than a conversation piece.

"Books are bound upside down all the time. Dust jackets are misprinted, there's crooked type," said Burlington, Ont., bookseller Len Shoup.

A spokesman for Raincoast Books agreed that it's normal a few copies in a print run would have some faults, adding the company will exchange any defective copies of the book.

One of the flawed books was for sale yesterday on online auction house eBay, drawing bids of almost $60. The book retails for about $41 in Canada.

Since so many million copies have been printed, Shoup suggested the latest Harry holds little interest for collectors.

"In my humble opinion, any copy of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince that came out Friday night at 12:01 isn't going to be worth much more 30 years from now because there are so many copies," he said.

Some 6.9 million first edition copies were sold in the U.S. over the weekend. More than two million were snapped up in the United Kingdom and Amazon's online book websites sold 1.5 million copies through advance orders. A spokesman for Raincoast said yesterday numbers weren't available for Canada.

A first-printing, first-edition of the first book in the series, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, might be worth upwards of $30,000 US today, Shoup said.

You can check out one of the auctions over here.

eBay Cancels Anything Points

eBay is discontinuing its Anything Points loyalty program on the U.S. eBay site, though the program will remain in effect on eBay Canada. The two-year-old program allowed users to convert loyalty points garnered from participating partners to eBay "Anything Points" and use them to purchase items on eBay or pay their eBay fees. The program was tied to eBay's online payment service PayPal.

eBay said the program will officially end on February 28, 2006 and the transition process would begin immediately. Participants will be able to use any points they have accumulated until August 31, 2006. All points that have not been used by August 31, 2006 will become invalid. eBay advised users of the eBay Anything Points credit card to contact their respective credit card providers.

Man Sells Trash On eBay

A Bethany man is being sued by Missouri Attorney General Jay Nixon for allegedly sending garbage and even feces to eBay customers who thought they were bidding for new or slightly used clothing.

Nixon filed the fraud suit against Michael Pickens. His wife, Tamera Pickens, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he is disabled with a rare blood disease, is unemployed and has never sold anything over the Internet.

The suit claims Internet ads promised top-quality clothes, including ads from Victoria’s Secret, Banana Republic and other well-known brands. But when customers placed their orders through the online auction site eBay, the suit says, Pickens arranged for the shipments to come from companies that sell industrial rags, unwanted clothing or household items meant for poor countries.

In one case, a customer allegedly received feces.

Nixon said Pickens either ignored or refused requests for refunds.

The lawsuit, filed in Harrison County Circuit Court, seeks a permanent injunction and fines of $1,000 per violation.

Mike Tyson's Mansion

Mike Tyson's former mansion, about an hour southwest of Cleveland, is up for sale again -- this time on eBay -- for $3.5 million.

The sprawling 35-year-old stone and wood home has 22 rooms and three ponds on 65 wooded acres -- and a lot of gloomy history.

The original owner lost the estate to foreclosure.

Tyson invested in the Ohio solitude but sold out to an Akron infomercial guru, Paul Monea, in 1999, when the IRS came around, the Cleveland Plain Dealer said. Monea lived there until he went to prison two years ago for tax evasion.

Three Headed Ant Dies

The Three Stooges, Newburgh's freakish three-headed ant who gained brief notoriety after landing at the on-line auction site eBay on Monday, has died. Age and gender are unknown. The cause of death was apparently starvation.

"I tried everything I could think of, but it didn't work," said Christine Macri, who found the bug clinging to a sunflower plant in her backyard Sunday. "I tried feeding him something sweet, but he didn't eat that." Except for its 15 minutes of fame in yesterday's newspaper, much of Stooges' life remains a mystery.

This much is clear to at least one expert: The one-quarter-inch-long bug only had one head of its own. After reviewing photos of the ant, Philip S. Ward, an ant expert at the University of California Davis, said the other two heads appeared to belong to ants that had been decapitated and speared gladiator-style, probably during an ant war. Other than that, it's anyone's guess.

"I felt sorry for it," Macri said of her decision to try and nurse the bug back to health before selling it. "When you think about people (or ants for that matter) who are Siamese twins, you think about how awful it would be to live that way."

The ant's untimely death won't stop the online auction, however. The Orange County artist said she is looking for ways to preserve the ant. "A friend told me to put it in the freezer," she said. "But I don't know. It might get freezer burn. Then, if someone wanted to dissect it or look at it, it might change its make up."

Anyway, check it out over here.

eBay and SkillJam

eBay is to launch a new service that allows its members to compete in online skill games for cash prizes.
The online auctioneer has partnered with SkillJam, a gaming subsidiary of Fun technologies, to offer its users a selection of multiplayer skill games.

Starting in October, SkillJam will offer a selection of co-branded games on eBay, which will be advertised within relevant areas of eBay’s online marketplace.

For example, a user looking to buy a chess board may see a pop up inviting them to play a game of online chess on eBay’s gaming section.

Users will be required to pay an as yet unspecified fee to play the games online, which give them the opportunity to win prizes.

SkillJam develops and distributes private-label gaming solutions for several clients in the US and abroad, including AOL, MSN's Zone.com and Disney's Go.com. Its most popular games include “Zuma”, “Bejeweled” and “Dynomite”.

Alien Abduction

This one is funny enough that I'll just give you the auction description...

Have you ever wondered about Alien Abductions? Have you ever wanted to be abducted by an alien? Do you want to go on a fun space ship ride? Do you want to see how how other galaxies are? I have been abducted so many times. The first time I was abducted I was scared. I didn't know what to expect but I became very friendly with the aliens. They are not here to hurt us they are very friendly and nice. I have seen so many things that is so unreal and hard to belive but is true. There are items that I was given that is thousands of years away from even starting to have here on Earth. I am waiting on permission from the higher ups if I can put anything like that on here. If I get the ok you will see it on here. I got the ok to do a UFO advertising. It will be the 1st in this WORLD to do. That will be going up next. I know there are people out there that want to be abducted so I decided to put this up on here. I got permission from them. I would never do this without there permission. Now to be clear on what you will be bidding on AND receiving. You will be bidding on to be abducted 1 time with the possibility of being abducted more times. You will be able to fly in a spaceship and meet the aliens.

Check out the auction here.

A Stalker's Letter

So what do you do when you get a letter from a psycho stalker? Sell it on eBay, duh.

It currently has 8 bids with the high bid being $66.

Not sure what else to say about this one, other than you can check it out over here.

World's Biggest Waste Of Money

A man from New Jersey is auctioning off the "The World's Biggest Waste of Money" on the online auction site eBay. The auction has already received almost 2,000 views has been bid up to $24.50 by a total of 29 bidders. The item remains one of the most watched items on eBay, and is on one of eBay's pages of "most popular" items.

Steven Toth, 23, who placed the auction on eBay, says that he knows "people buy some really weird things on eBay that they later say were a big waste of money, so I thought it would be funny to see how far I could take it. I wanted to see if anyone would be interested in an auction for a big a waste of money."

Strange eBay auctions have been getting national attention recently. In one case, a woman auctioned off advertising space on her forehead to the tune of ten thousand dollars. This latest national attention grabbing auction really pushes the limit of what people will buy on eBay.

"People buy everything on eBay, but it will be fun to see how far this goes!" Mr. Toth said.

The auction is available for bids until July 17, and is availible for viewing over here.

Jay Leno Chicken Nugget

Here's another food auction item up for bid. This one is a chicken nugget shaped like Jay Leno.

Personally I don't think it looks anything like Jay Leno, but apparently some people do, because it already has attracted 18 bids with the top bid being $300 (5 1/2 days are still left on the auction).

You can check it out for yourself by clicking here.

Original Lightsabers For Auction

The legendary lightsabers brandished by Star Wars characters Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are up for auction alongside a bevy of memorabilia from the sci-fi saga.

The iconic weapons, which go under the hammer on July 29, have been valued at a staggering $140,000 by Los Angeles auction house Profiles in History.

Other items soon to be at the centre of a bidding frenzy include Skywalker's orange X-Wing pilot jumpsuit, which is valued at $80,000, Yoda's mask, and a Stormtrooper "blaster" weapon.

The lightsaber used by Darth Vader in The Empire Strikes Back is likely to fetch $60,000, while the Jedi Knight's weapon is estimated to reach $80,000 in the auction.

But bidders will be disappointed if they expect the sabers to light up as they did on screen--their glowing appearance was all down to special effects.

All 75 items are presently owned by Star Wars producer Gary Kurtz who created a huge prop archive with Star Wars historian Jason Joiner.

UConn Playbook on eBay

Former Huskies walk-on football player Mark Punzelt tried to sell his 2004 playbook on eBay according to a report in the Hartford Advocate.

The playbook was listed on the online auction site June 17 and removed by Punzelt two days after UConn officials contacted him. Two users had already placed bids for $24.99 and $100.01, respectively.
Punzelt told the Advocate in an e-mail that his intentions were not malicious.

"As soon as I realized it was a problem, I took it down and had it returned to the UConn football office," he wrote. "I meant to sell it as a collectable, not to jeopardize UConn football in any way."

And there isn't much reason to question Punzelt on that point. He made no efforts to hide his identity as the seller, given his eBay user name contained his first name, last initial and listed his location as Madison, Conn.

In a similar incident, copies of the Miami Hurricanes playbook were stolen in 2002 and parts posted on the Internet. Head coach Larry Coker downplayed the importance of the information leak.

Now, James Hofher, head coach at the University of Buffalo has done the same. His Bulls face the Huskies in both teams' season opener. In an e-mail to the Advocate, Hofher writes that the playbook in question is outdated and thus of little use to anyone.

"They will have changed some things in their attack because the players have changed quite a bit on offense," Hofher writes.

Furthermore, he thinks the speed and complexity of the game limit even the value of a current playbook.

"To expect a collegian to be able to decipher some command from an opposing QB, at the line of scrimmage, in the three to five seconds that it may occur, and try to have the defensive signal caller alert/adjust a defense accordingly in one to three seconds is pretty remote, if not unrealistic," Hofher writes.

PayPal In China

eBay Inc. will offer its online payment service PayPal in China by the end of this year, the company said Wednesday, continuing its push to grow there.

PayPal spokeswoman Amanda Pires declined to give specific details about the launch.

With growth in the United States and Germany slowing, eBay has looked for other growth opportunities. In the past, Chief Executive Meg Whitman has pointed to several characteristics that make China an appealing market, including that its online population is expected to exceed that of the United States by 2009.

eBay, which is based in San Jose, announced in January that it would increase its investment in China this year.

eBay's Chinese site is called EachNet and offers items in both auction and fixed-price formats.

eBay purchased PayPal in October 2002. PayPal had 22.1 million active accounts as of March 31, the end of eBay's first quarter.

Stolen Stamps

Part of Charles Starne’s stamp collection, worth an estimated $350,000 when stolen in 1983 has apparently turned up on eBay. An eagle-eyed collector in Florida recognised some distinctive imperfections among the material whilst browsing the website and reported the matter to the FBI.

No arrests have yet been made but the FBI have seized the stamps and the investigation is ongoing.

Justin Timberlake's Puke

The latest rumour flying around is that Justin Timberpants – he of the snake hips and pencil-thin A-list girlfriend – threw up in his OWN restaurant.

Hotly denied by the star, the gossip-mongers claim he was chowing down at his Chi eatery in LA but couldn’t make it to the bogs in time and chucked up on the floor.

Health and safety would surely have something to say.

America’s Star magazine makes the stomach-churning claims, saying a source said, “he really overdid it, he partied until he puked, right there at the bar”.

But Up-Chucky Timberlake denied it all, and the New York Post was informed by his people: “That's not true. I'm sure he's thrown up in his life before, but not at that restaurant."

In an amusing aside, Star magazine said staff at the restaurant were allegedly discussing how much they would get if they flogged his vom on eBay.

Godfather Script Sets Record

Marlon Brando's annotated film script from the 1972 film The Godfather brought more than $390,000 in an auction of the star's memorabilia that netted a total of $3 million.

The script fetched more than 20 times its estimated auction price. It was the largest amount paid for any single item at the auction, and the highest amount ever paid for a film script, according to Christie's New York.

Godfather mementos were the hottest items under the hammer. A letter from the book's author, Mario Puzo, asking Brando to take the role of Don Corleone brought $170,000 A photograph of Brando and Rita Moreno in the 1968 film The Night of the Following Day - the only piece of movie memorabilia that Brando kept in his home - brought $63,000. A 1961 telegram from Brando to Marilyn Monroe sold for $50,000 "I feel humbled by collectors and fans who have spent so freely to own a piece of my father's heritage and history," Miko Brando, one of the star's children, said in a statement.

Prices included a 20 per cent buyer's premium on sales up to $260,000 and 12 per cent on amounts exceeding $260,000. The collection featured more than 250 items removed from Brando's Los Angeles home, where the famously private actor had lived since 1960. He died of lung failure in July 2004 at age 80.

The previous record for a film script was $320,000 for Clark Gable's copy of Gone With the Wind in 1996.

18 Foot Mech For Sale

Super dorks with at least $40,000 to spare can bid on a towering mecha that shoots flames and has red glowing eyes.

Carlos Owens Junior of Wasilla has listed his 18-foot handmade hydraulic exoskeleton on eBay.

The minimum bid is $35,000, plus $5,000 to ship the 3,000 pound structure from Alaska.

The 27-year-old apprentice ironworker says he's selling the rust-red machine to fund construction of his next project -- a mobile amphibious mecha that would run on wheels or tracks.

Owens took almost two years and more than $20,000 to construct his prototype mecha in his parents' back yard. Unlike robots, which are operated remotely, mechas are operated by the person riding inside the frame.

I guess there isn't a whole lot to do for kids in Alaska. If you want it, check it out here.

Accidental eBay Seller Porn

Let's say you have a spare 19" monitor laying around. Rather than junking it, you decide to sell it on eBay for a little cash... Except you forget that a monitor has a reflective surface and you are naked.



Hopefully this guy gets lots of money for the monitor and can buy some clothes.

Anyway, if you want a monitor, you can bid on it here.

opusforum.org Bought by eBay

Online auctioneer eBay Inc. on Thursday said its classifieds unit Kijiji has acquired a German classifieds Web site called opusforum.org for an unreported amount.

Started up by Klaus Gapp in 2002, Opusforum offers classifieds service in 55 cities mostly in Germany. According to comScore Media Metrix, the site attracted more than 1 million unique visitors in May.

Ebay said the acquisition allows it to expand its position in Germany. The deal is the latest in a string of acquisitions by the online auctioneer. Earlier this month said eBay said it would purchase shopping and consumer review site Shopping.com Inc. in a deal valued at about $620 million. In December, eBay purchased the privately held Santa Monica, Calif.-based real estate firm Rent.com for about $415 million in stock and cash.

Last year, the company expanded internationally, purchasing India's most popular online shopping site, Baazee.com, for $50 million, and the leading Dutch classified site, Marktplaats.nl, for about $290 million.

U2 Sues Over Auction

U2 launched a lawsuit Tuesday against one of its former stylists, Lola Cashman, who has a range of memorabilia from her work on the band's 1987 "Joshua Tree" world tour.

In 2002 Cashman tried to sell some of the items - including a Stetson cowboy hat, sweatshirt, trousers and earrings worn by Bono during the tour - at the Christies auction house in London, but at that time U2's lawyers stopped the sale by telling the auctioneers that the goods weren't hers to sell.

On Tuesday one of U2's lawyers, Paul Sreenan, told Dublin Circuit Court judge Matthew Deery that Bono and other U2 members would testify that they had not given any of the items to Cashman, who was also accused of claiming inappropriate expenses during the 1987 tour.

Sreenan said the band hoped the judge would issue a judgment that Cashman should not continue to possess or try to sell any of the materials in dispute, including about 200 photos of the 1987 tour.

None of the U2 members was in court Tuesday. The band completed a three-night concert stand Monday night in their hometown with an 80,000-seat sellout performance at the city's Croke Park stadium.

eBay ProStores

Eager to find new sources of income beyond its popular online auction format, eBay Inc. has launched a service that encourages small and medium-size sellers to build Web stores that operate independently of the e-commerce powerhouse.

eBay's new ProStores service will allow sellers to design their own fixed-price e-commerce site with a unique Web address. There are four tiers of ProStores, with monthly subscription fees ranging from $6.95 to $249.95

A basic subscription costs $6.95 per month with fees ranging from 0.5 percent to 1.5 percent of transactions and will allow users to link their custom-built site to their eBay site and use PayPal, eBay's popular online transaction service.

The move, which eBay announced at its annual shareholder meeting Thursday in San Jose, Calif., comes as revenue growth slows in the company's core auction format.

The new service comes about six months after eBay enraged many small-scale sellers with a hefty price hike. In mid-January, eBay warned sellers in a terse e-mail that the monthly subscription fee for people who operate "Basic eBay Stores" would increase from $9.95 to $15.95, and the fee for a standard listing of 10 days would double, from 20 cents to 40 cents.

Devil Rock

Someone found a rock at the beach that looks like a demon's face. Hey man, everyone else is cashing in on eBay with stupid stuff, so why not sell the devil rock on eBay? :)

Anyway, the opening bid is $2,500 to own your very own demon head.

If you want to check out the auction, click here.

PetroKaz May Put Itself Up For Auction

PetroKazakhstan, an oil producer based in Canada with assets in central Asia, is considering a sale, potentially turning itself into the latest battleground in the global competition for energy resources.

PetroKaz has a market capitalisation of $2.5bn. Investment bankers at Goldman Sachs, working for the company, were expecting to receive bids for it this week, according to people familiar with the matter.

A Chinese and an Indian oil company were the frontrunners in the auction, these people added, although they were careful not to rule out that a western energy company might also decide to put in an offer. No specific names were mentioned.

Because of soaring demand for oil, China and India have been seeking to gain control of assets by pushing their energy companies into acquisitions.

That policy was highlighted last week when state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation made a $20bn unsolicited bid for Unocal of the US.

CNOOC is not believed to be interested in acquiring PetroKaz.

Although PetroKaz is based in Calgary, central Canada, its assets are all in the South Turgai Basin in south-central Kazakhstan.

On its website, PetroKaz says its proved plus probable crude oil reserves have been independently assessed at 550m barrels.

PetroKaz's consideration of a sale has come as the group is facing a legal challenge from Lukoil, the Russian oil company.

This month Lukoil filed a $200m claim against PetroKaz at the International Chamber of Commerce's court of arbitration in connection with a dispute over Turgai Petroleum, a joint venture between the two companies.

The company has also been at odds with the Kazakh government over environmental regulations.

9/11 Aircraft Wreckage

An Australian man has tried to sell wreckage from one of the airliners that crashed into the World Trade Centre on eBay for $250,000.

The seller, who gave his home city as Adelaide, claims he obtained the piece of turbine blade from a relative who worked in a nearby building in New York.
But angry relatives of a Sydney man killed in the September 11, 2001 terror attack have described the attempt to profit from the tragedy as callous and cruel.

The debris is said to be from American Airlines Flight 11, the first to crash into the twin towers.

Qantas baggage handler Alberto Dominguez was one of 92 passengers aboard the plane when it was hijacked by al-Qaeda terrorists.

Mr Dominguez's son, Diego, told The Sunday Telegraph he found it hard to believe someone could try to sell a piece of the wreckage.

"Nobody should profit from that. It's cruel to try to sell something like that," Diego Dominguez said.

"It's hard to believe. If they really have it, they should hand it over to a museum or something. That would be the right thing to do."

The seller, whose eBay identity is james4894, put the item up for sale last week.

In his description, he said the wreckage had been found on the roof of a building about 1km from the World Trade Centre.

There was not a single bidder in the 24 hours before the item was withdrawn from sale after complaints by members of the public.

Rick Law, of the 9/11 Memorial Project, which tracks the whereabouts of 9/11 aircraft debris said: "This is the most offensive and disturbing item we have seen put up for auction."

eBay To Change Some Policies

After months of complaints from its sellers, it's clear that eBay is finally paying more attention. On Thursday night, CEO Meg Whitman extended some olive branches, drawing big cheers during her keynote at the company's eBay Live! member conference in San Jose.

For one, she and Bill Cobb, president of eBay North America, announced are ways to make shipping easier for both sellers and buyers, such as eliminating a 20-cent charge per preprinted shipping label and adding the shipping cost to the results of product searches. They also announced several changes to eBay's feedback system, by which buyers and sellers rate each other. Among other things, buyers won't be able to leave so-called retaliatory negative ratings if they don't pay for an item, and sellers will be barred from doing the same thing if they don't ship the item they promised.

Whether all that mollifies sellers miffed at fee hikes last February and what they see as declining customer service remains to be seen. But sellers after the keynote said the moves are promising.

Whitman also shed some light on the recent flurry of acquisitions and investments in new selling venues. "We want to help you grow, even off the eBay marketplace," she told the crowd of thousands of sellers. "This is the beginning of an exciting new chapter for you and your businesses and, we believe, for eBay as well. eBay wants to be not only the best site but the best solution provider for sellers."

Telegrams From Howard Hughes To Katherine Hepburn

Between flying and designing planes, producing movies and being a billionaire, Howard Hughes always seemed to make time for the ladies.

Details from one of his most high-profile affairs are now up for auction in the form of 22 telegrams he sent to Katherine Hepburn during their brief romance in the late 1930s.

The selection includes a telegram Hughes sent Hepburn on Jan. 19, 1937 - the day he set a new air record, flying from Burbank, Calif., to Newark, N.J., in seven hours, 28 minutes and 25 seconds.

The flight was over, and Hughes apparently was running behind schedule to meet Hepburn at Chicago's Ambassador Hotel before she performed in a play.

"Supposed to arrive six something in the afternoon," the Western Union telegram reads. "Probably not in time to see you before the theater so will try to contain myself until eleven thirty, love Dan."

Dan was short for Dynamite, one of several nicknames the two shared.

Buffett Lunch Auction Underway

The auction for a lunch with Warren Buffet has started, so if you want to monitor it, check it out over here.

Update... It's up to $250,000 with 5+ days left.

Hypersonic Spotlight Sound

This is an interesting little gadget for sale on eBay right now. Here's the description:

Basically, this unit projects sound like a laser pointer projects light. If I were holding the unit 150ft away from you pointing it at the ground, you'd hear silence. If I pointed it at you from that distance, you'd hear crystal clear audio as if it were coming out of your own head. It's quite incredible.

The unit itself is one of the few that will plug into a standard American 100-110v outlet, and it also has both AV/RCA and XLR inputs, a mute control, and an automatic volume adjuster to prevent clipping or painful volumes.

I have successfully tested and used this unit. Here's just a couple of it's infinate home uses:

• Have a backyard party at 4:00am with loud music, without actually disturbing your neighbors.
  
• Talk to someone quietly and clearly from far away, call your kids from down the block.
  
• A speakerphone without annoyance or feedback.
  
• Watch television at full volume while your spouse sleeps in silence.

The list goes on and on.

This technology is not yet commercially available, and because of the potential for abuse, I'm going to bet that it will require guidelines or a license if it ever does become available to the public.

DO NOT BID on this auction if you plan to do the following:

• Use the unit for abruptive advertising (to traffic or people passing by your store/billboard/etc)
  
• Use this unit for malicious purposes (as a weapon or to make people think they're going crazy)

eBay Items Lead Police to Suspect in Abduction

Authorities said they used eBay, the online auction site, to locate a man suspected of abducting his daughter.

The Humboldt County Sheriff's Department tracked Eric Gotsch, 31, to Burnet County, Texas, after spotting Gotsch's various eBay offerings on the Internet, officials said. He was arrested Wednesday.

Gotsch was supposed to drop off his 3-year-old daughter at her mother's home in McKinleyville on June 2, but he failed to arrive and didn't show up for work.

Gotsch will probably be extradited to California, where he will be charged with felony child concealment, according to the Sheriff's Department.

Blog Comment Spam

Seems like there has been an influx of spam comments lately for no purpose other than people getting a link from this site. So now, not only do URLs in comments don't get link credit (as far as search engines go), but neither do people's profiles/URL that is clickable on their name.

Sorry, but it was getting too annoying. Maybe people will stop it now.

$18,000 Bar Of Soap

Perhaps the oddest piece of work at Art Basel is a bar of soap, displayed on a square of black velvet, purportedly made from Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's fat, removed during liposuction.

Gianni Monti's work called 'Clean Hands' -- the title is a play on the name of an anti-Mafia group -- sold in less than an hour for 15,000 euros ($18,000) to a private Swiss collector, according to Monti's Galerie Nicola von Senger of Zurich.

Lunch with Warren Buffet

Billionaire investor Warren Buffett is auctioning a lunch on eBay for the third straight year.

Proceeds from the auction, which runs from June 23 to 30, will benefit the Glide Foundation, a San Francisco non-profit organization that offers programs for the poor, hungry and homeless. Glide announced plans for this year's auction today.

Last year's winner agreed to pay $202,100 to dine with the world's second-richest person, while the previous year's winner agreed to pay $250,100. This year's bidding will start at $25,000.

As in prior years, Buffett will host the winner and seven friends. The lunch will be held either in Omaha, Nebraska, where Buffett lives and works, or in New York.

Free Label Printing

eBay is doing away with the $0.20 fee for printing shipping labels. Here's the note from Bill Cobb, President of eBay North America:

eBay Live! will kick off here in San Jose in just a couple of weeks. We'll be sharing a lot of exciting news for eBay members; if you can't attend in person, I hope you'll keep an eye on this Announcement Board so you don't miss anything.

One announcement we were planning for eBay Live! will actually be ready next Friday. So we're going to launch it earlier than planned, and I wanted to share the good news as soon as possible. Keeping secrets is hard!

One of my priorities for eBay.com is to make shipping less of a hassle for you. Put simply, we want to do for shipping what we did for online payments when we acquired PayPal and integrated it into the transaction flow on eBay.

Last year, we introduced the ability to save time by printing shipping labels with pre-filled address information, billed directly to your PayPal account. You've told us you love this – in fact, you've printed millions of labels so far.

To cover our processing costs, we've been charging a 20-cent fee for each USPS® First Class®, or Media Mail®, and Parcel Post® label. But starting next Friday, June 17, eBay and PayPal no longer will charge this processing fee. Many sellers on eBay stand to save hundreds – even thousands – of dollars per year with the elimination of this fee.

To learn more about purchasing and printing USPS shipping labels with postage, you can visit the eBay Shipping Center or PayPal Shipping Center.

So stay tuned for more good news. We look forward to seeing as many of you as possible at eBay Live! here in San Jose the week after next.

Sincerely,
Bill

Bill Cobb
President
eBay North America

Mobile eBay

For all the eBay addicts out there, Moonlight Mobile is coming out with a little Java applet for any Java enabled cell phone. This little gem will let all the eBay freaks monitor eBay auctions, make bids, etc. Basically use eBay from anywhere they are at.

I can't wait... as if people driving while talking on their cell phones aren't bad enough, but now we will have people driving and bidding on eBay auctions. :)

eBay Ireland Launches

Today, eBay has officially launched their eBay Ireland site. Previously Ireland was rolled into their United Kingdom site.

The UK site already had 200,000 Irish users registered, so that should give them a good little start. :)

Severed Alien Head

Some guy found a severed alien head while walking in the forest near his house (he lived in Oregon). What would you do if you found an alien head? You would sell it on eBay of course, don't be stupid!

Check it out here.

Shaquille O'Neal's Zimmer

Shaquille O'Neal once owned this 2000 convertible Zimmer (one of only 8 custom vehicles made by Zimmer Motorcars of the USA) which is now for sale on eBay by the current owner. The vehicle is pretty cherry and only has 2,500 miles since new.

The proceeds of this auction are going to go to Noah's Ark animal santuary, a no kill animal shelter serving the pet world since 1979 in Rockford, Illinois.

If you want to bid or just window shop, you can do so over here.