About the Blog / About Me / / Real Estate Recommendations

Collections

Suggest a link?

« Magic Negro | Main | Happy New 2009 »

December 31, 2008

First item sold on eBay

Laser_pointer eBay was founded as AuctionWeb on September 3, 1995, by French-born Iranian computer programmer Pierre Omidyar, and Phil Fischer, as part of a larger personal site that included, among other things, Omidyar's own tongue-in-cheek tribute to the Ebola virus. In 1997, the company received approximately $5 million in funding from the venture capital firm Benchmark Capital.

The very first item sold on eBay was a broken laser pointer for $14.83. Astonished, Omidyar contacted the winning bidder to ask if he understood that the laser pointer was broken. In his responding email, the buyer explained:

"I'm a collector of broken laser pointers"...

TA-da!

- - - - - - - -

Here are some Unusual items auctioned on eBay

eBay’s List of acquisitions includes 25% of Craigslist (Here is Craigslist headquarters in San Francisco)

- - - - - - - -

Also, Futility closet’s first post, 3 years ago tomorrow

And from there: "Vse zene" - The world’s Shortest will

A Huge Depository of Unusual ‘First Ever’ Stories Here

AddThis Social Bookmark Button

December 31, 2008 in First Ever | Permalink

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
https://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00d8341c858253ef010536a6fae8970c

Listed below are links to weblogs that reference A collector of broken laser pointers:

Comments

That unusual items link led me to reading the original 7-legged spider email exchange. I haven't laughed so hard in ages!

Posted by: Chad at Dec 31, 2008 7:20:55 AM

same here. I read about it thru the article, and thought of including it - hilarious !

Posted by: growabrain at Dec 31, 2008 7:47:32 AM

Where ELSE would I go to find a link to a rimshot?

All the best to you in this new year!

Posted by: Mr. Natural at Dec 31, 2008 11:33:32 AM

Happy New Year!

Posted by: Suzanne Moshenko at Dec 31, 2008 3:56:23 PM

This calls for Weird Al Yankovic singing his brilliant eBay song:
http://www.updatexp.com/ebay-song.html

Posted by: Marilyn Terrell at Jan 1, 2009 8:42:18 PM

Ichigo Kurosaki is the main character of the anime and manga series Bleach. Ichigo has shinigami powers as a result of a run- in with Rukia Kuchiki, one of the many shinigami who live in the spirit world, Soul Society. These powers come at the cost of Rukia's own, and as a result, Ichigo is forced to work as Rukia's stand- in, fighting to protect people from hollows, and sending Pluses off to the afterlife. According to the Shonen Jump's character popularity polls, Ichigo is consistently the Bleach series...

Posted by: naruto at Jan 2, 2009 2:33:33 PM