Dave Niec’s router table has a peculiar charm–kind of like Charlie Brown’s Christmas tree or a painting of dogs playing cards that’s hanging in somebody else’s house. But he never expected it to develop a worldwide following.
A couple of months ago, the 30-year-old engineer was sifting through junk in the basement of his Stockbridge, Mich., home and decided to list his worthless carpenter’s tool on eBay as a joke. Niec quickly found that the world loves a good gag–and loves to be in on it: By the time the auction ended, he had 435,732 hits, priceless input from bemused observers that became part of the auction listing and eight bids (with a winning price of $26.22). He got 40 to 60 e-mails a day, appeared on Chicago public radio and received a handful of marriage proposals.
It’s not rare to find weird or worthless items on eBay, including belly button lint and prosthetic testicles. But a couple of recent farce auctions spawned a wave of participation–even fame.
Niec’s router route to fame began with an auction description that left no doubt about the table: “I’ve wasted money on a lot of things in my life: women, cars. … But I’ve never felt like I totally 100 percent wasted my money on something until I bought this router table. … This is the most worthless piece of crap item I have ever had the displeasure of working with in my life.”
And one of a kind? You bet. “It became three-legged after I was trying to rout something one day and I noticed that the table was moving. That was from the plastic inserts working loose on the leg mounts. It was like routing wood on a waterbed. … After a few more pieces I’m in the middle of a cut and the leg just fell off. So I had to stop to keep from losing any fingers.”
For a finishing touch, Niec used a beer bottle as the fourth leg so the table wouldn’t fall over when the picture was taken. The seven-day auction ended March 28, but Niec (pronounced nees) says the e-mails slowed only recently. The marriage proposals and offers to go on dates were flattering, his status as husband and father notwithstanding.
“One proposal was especially serious,” Niec says. “She sent me a four- or five-page note and told me her life story. She volunteered to be my love slave. I figured I’d better not respond.”
Wedding proposals also were the last thing Larry Star of Seattle was looking for after a five-year marriage that was almost as ugly as the divorce. But the proposals began flooding in after he squeezed his burly, tattooed frame into a dress and cyberspace.
The auction produced more than 16 million hits–easily an eBay record; appearances on “The Tonight Show With Jay Leno” and “Today”; a $3,850 winning bid (later nullified); and a stand-up comedy gig in Atlanta. But Star’s newfound fame has come with a buzz kill or two. A Seattle Times story reported that he actually has two ex-wives, had a baby with the second ex after saying in the auction that he had no children with her and was charged with fourth-degree domestic-violence assault in 2001.
Yet, the glass slipper still fits. “A lot of possibilities have come from this,” he said. “I’m on my way to do TLC’s ‘Wild Weddings’ right now, and I’m fielding offers for books, maybe even a TV pilot.”
Maybe it’s lucky for Tim Warren that Niec’s auction ended at only $26.22. The winner on the router table auction, from Memphis, Tenn., said he contacted Niec after the auction and told him he’d pay for the auction fees “as thanks for the laugh,” but he didn’t really want the router table.
So yes–after all this, Niec still has the table, and Star still has the gown.
How to find the fun stuff
On the eBay home page, click on Browse near the bottom, just above the copyright information. When that page comes up, in the Browse categories near the bottom, there’s an Everything Else category with a subcategory that says More. Click on More. On the Everything Else page near the bottom is a category called Weird Stuff, and it has subcategories: Slightly Unusual, Really Weird and Totally Bizarre.
Or, if you want to look at past auctions, you can simply go to www.whattheheck.com and click on eBay oddities. You’ll find enough dumb stuff there to leave you dumbfounded.
–KRT
BYTHE NUMBERS
95 million
EBay members worldwide, including 65 million in the U.S.
19 million
Items on eBay at any given time, more than 300 times the number of stock-keeping units in a typical Wal-Mart.
$40.9 billion
EBay’s market value as of November 2003–$11 billion more than Ford Motor Co.
$4.9 million
Price of a Gulfstream II jet that sold on eBay on Aug. 16, 2001, a record for the site.
2,000
Bids placed on antiques or artwork every hour.
9
Number of minutes, on average, between SUV sales on eBay.
–KRT
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Edited by Cara DiPasquale (cdipasquale@tribune.com) and Chris Courtney (cdcourtney@tribune.com)
