Robert McCabe
The Virginian-Pilot
©
CHESAPEAKE
Forget recession fears, skyrocketing gas prices and falling stocks. Someone, apparently, is willing to pay thousands of dollars for a corn flake.
Emily McIntire stumbled across a relative fortune while gobbling handfuls of dry cereal earlier this month.
She found a giant corn flake that resembles the state of Illinois, and then offered it for sale on eBay.
As of 10:45 a.m. today, the site showed 84 bids, with a top offer of $200,500. Verified bids had been only $50 on Sunday.
Tuesday morning Emily's 23-year-old sister, Melissa, said they suspected some of the bids were fraudulent, and have been working with eBay to weed them out.
Users of the Internet auction site have had some fun with the item, called The Great Illinois Corn Flake. Also for sale now are a Great Illinois Corn Flake T-shirt (a photo shows a plain shirt with an image of the corn flake digitally added), a gallon of milk, a spoon ("useful for Great Illinois Corn Flake") and other geographically-gifted bits of cereal, said to resemble Ireland and Hawaii (a string of carefully arranged flakes).
Emily, 15, a sophomore at Grassfield High, spent most of Monday fielding media calls from as far away as London. On Tuesday, Melissa reported, they had talked with the "Today" show and Fox News, as well as radio stations around the country.
The flake’s seven-day auction ends Thursday.
For now, “The Great Illinois Corn Flake” is being kept safe in a cotton-lined jewelry box.
The sisters seem to have a sense of humor about the find.
"We have a feeling at the end of this we'll have a good story and the corn flake," Melissa said.
Robert McCabe, (757) 222-5217, robert.mccabe@pilotonline.com
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Be careful
Be careful... someone bids your cornflake up to $2 million dollars with a hacked account. After it closes they draw it out for a long period of time, and eBay will come along and ding your bank account / credit card for the listing fee which is probably going to be thousands of dollars (the base fee + percentage of 2 million bucks). Then you will have to fight eBays poor customer support. I listed one of my Cray Supercomputers on there, some chump bid, got the run around, never paid, ebay wouldn't refund the $90 they took for the "sale." I have no reservations about selling around eBay.
Awww
The corn flake is gone...
Anybody else??
Does anyone else look at this piece of cereal and see a little girl maybe praying, with hand in front of face and a ponytail in a ringlet? I think it's closer to this than the state of Illinois???
some really good orange juice
keep digging in the corn flake box maybe you will come up with a flake that looks like jesus , I think someone must have spiked their orange juice .
THE "FLAKE"
what determines how much art is worth??? supply and demand or is it demand and supply...hmmm
Creative College Cash
YOU GO GIRLS! I've got to start buying Corn Flakes. ;-)
And Republicans say...
the rich are taxed too much?
Good for you girls!
I hope some Vegas casino drops $500k for it!
I wonder how they will ship it.
The girls are going to have fun getting that to their buyer.
None of the major carriers will insure perishables for damage. If it is lost, all the carriers will pay is the cost of replacing the corn flake. Whole box of them is what, $3?
If you look at the bidding history, there are bids from individuals with absolutely no history. I doubt they will see the big bucks for their freaky flake.
I don't see Illinois, but...
I can make out the profile of Geronimo. I wonder of that would fetch more money.