Ebay - O the Zany Horror!

A while back, someone posted a comment to me asking me what I thought about this: a haunted Ebay painting.

The painting sold for an incredible amount on Ebay, probably just for the unique story. So why would people want to dish out money for a haunted object? It just points to our unending fascination with the mysterious and unknown.

I mean, if you think about it, buying a haunted painting has got to be a lose/lose proposition. If you get the thing and it's really haunted...well guess what. Now you live in a haunted house. And you paid money for this to happen. Or if you buy it and it's a hoax (much more likey) - then you've just spent a lot of good money on a painting and perhaps a story that people will make fun of you about for a very long time.

The painting is called "Hands Resist Him" . The interesting thing about the panting is that it's supposedly haunted.

According to the Ebay auctioneer, their 4 year old daughter claimed that the children in the picture were fighting. Then, they stated that after setting up video cameras, they could see the boy in the picture trying to exit the painting.

Right. I didn't really buy it, either. But it makes for a good story. If you want to read what the auctioneer wrote in their entirety, click on the first link in this post.

Now, truth be told, there are some interesting phenomena that accompany this painting - the art critic who first saw this painting and the art gallery owner who featured it both died within a year of each other. The artist himself confirms this. Yep, as a matter of fact, the artist of the painting is still alive. His comments are here.

The fact that the artist is still alive and didn't put any curse on the painting or what not sort of kills the "what if" factor for me.

But this haunted painting is not the only such gimmick to appear on Ebay - least we forget the "Ghost in the Jar" that appeared on Ebay as well.



The "Ghost in the Jar" auction featured a jar that was supposed to be full of some kind of black ash or dirt. In any event, supposedly the auctioneer had found two of these jars and broken one. The broken jar released a black, shadowy entity which had attempted to strangle the auctioneer on a number of occasions. So now, the auctioneer was here trying to sell us the other, unopened jar that he had found. Did it have a ghost trapped inside of it? Or something else?

Yet again, this jar started going for a lot of money. However, people started treating this item as it was meant to be (a joke or hoax) and the bidding got out of hand. Eventually, the item was made invalid. The bidding page is here.

What drew so much attention to this "Ghost in a Jar" though was the idea that someone would try to auction an actual "ghost" on Ebay...and our fascination for the bizarre and unusual.

It also shows us that one basic thing about us as human beings - some people will do anything for a buck.

Today, if you go on Ebay today, you can find all manner of supposedly haunted or supernatural items. How fast can you find one? It took me about 4:50 min. I timed myself.