… for a Sanka ashtray if Luc Sante made up a story about it? Apparently at least a few people would, as Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker found when they launched a project called Significant Objects, where they paired up creative writers with objects bought at garage sales and asked them to make up a story about the objects. Each object is for sale on eBay, where anyone can bid for it.
I’ve never twittered and never sold or bought on eBay. To me the technology and the hassle of the latter are daunting. I came across a franchise chain, iSold It, which solves the fact that I’m eBay-challenged. Drop off your item at an iSold It store and they handle auctioning it on eBay and sending it to the lucky buyer. . . .
Archaeologists worry a lot about looting. Artifacts stolen from historical sites fetch high prices on the black market, which gives looters strong incentives to steal these items. The emergence of eBay, therefore, was a nightmare for those who hated looting. Reducing transaction costs and making the market more liquid would certainly lead to more looting. EBay almost certainly had that . . .