5 of the Most Haunted Items Ever Sold on eBay
Bidding online? Proceed with caution.
eBay is great for bargain shopping, but it's also home to thousands of supposedly haunted items. While there's no way of knowing if the objects are truly possessed, or if the sellers simply needed an intriguing backstory to make them more enticing, some products have such dark pasts that they've inspired movies, books, and more. Here are some of the most haunted items ever sold on the auction site.
Disturbing Painting
Known as the "The Haunted eBay Painting," The Hands Resist Him is a work from artist Bill Stoneham. Based on a real-life photograph of the artist from around the time he was five years old, it depicts a young boy and a doll in front of a glass door, with disembodied hands in the background. A California couple found the painting in an abandoned brewery, but in February 2000, not long after they'd brought it home, they listed it on eBay with a dire warning to buyers: "This painting may or may not possess supernatural powers that could impact or change your life." They claimed their daughter told them that the boy and girl from the painting would fight with each other at night. The ad also mentioned that, at one point, "the boy seemingly exited the picture," which is when they decided to sell. It sold for $1,025 to Kim Smith, a gallery owner from Michigan. In an interview, she revealed that she's received emails from people who claimed they were "repulsed" or became "physically ill" just by viewing a photo of the painting.
Dibbuk Box
This container looks innocent enough, but it's far from it. According to the owner's lengthy product description, a dibbuk, or dybbuk, is a term from Jewish folklore that describes a dead person's soul that is stuck in purgatory. Supposedly it can inhabit an object, or the body of a living person. The seller claimed he bought it from an estate sale in Oregon, and was specifically told never to open it, which he did anyway. Intending to refinish it, he kept the box in the basement of his workshop.When his assistant said she heard noises coming from the basement and that all the lights had gone out, he investigated and found all of the lightbulbs had been smashed, and the basement reeked of cat urine. (He's never owned a cat, and his terrified assistant never returned to work again.) Not associating any of the odd incidents with the box, he gave it to his mother as a gift, and she immediately suffered a major stroke. In the hospital, she wrote out "H-A-T-E-G-I-F-T." With the box in his possession once again, he began having a terrible recurring nightmare, and then discovered that everyone in his family was having the same exact nightmare. When he started seeing shadowy figures around the house, he decided the box had to go. The owner's tale of the The Dibbuk Box inspired the 2012 horror film The Possession.
Possessed Carving
Sold on eBay in 2013, the seller claimed the carving had been in their family for over 60 years. The seller's grandparents found the statue in the attic of their West Virginia home in the 1950s. When they asked the original homeowners where it came from, they learned it was a gift from a prisoner who had carved it. According to the seller's description, "anyone who comes in contact with it seems to feel strange or creeped out by it." Strange occurrences began when the seller took the carving out of its storage box and displayed it in a cabinet: "I began to experience the television turning off and on. Lights coming on in rooms no one was in. The kids toys coming on in the middle of the night in their room at 3 a.m." Despite the item's haunted history, it sold for $85.
Destructive Statue
Auctioned in October 2013, this folk art bust was made by a man named William who enjoyed making sculptures out of unhardened clay. According to the item's description, William made this particular statue on the same day he "was crushed to death" during a tragic work accident at the brickyard. A co-worker saw that the statue was still at the job site when he arrived the next day, so he took it home with him. While nothing strange happened for a few months, things took a turn when he took it out of storage to display in his den. A few days later, the den felt "heavy and uninviting." He began hearing doors slam on their own, only to find them wide open. Decorations that were next to the statue shattered on their own, and, at one point, he found the statue facing the other side of the wall even though he had never moved it. To make matters worse, he then saw "a dark shadow or mist" as he was walking past the den one night. Completely spooked, he begged his friend to sell it for him, who then put it on eBay.
Nightmare Doll
The doll may look like any other, but according to the seller, it's a dybbuk, or dibbuk, just like the aforementioned box. The seller, who specializes in selling paranormal items that people don't want anymore, says the doll's owner bought it at an antique shop and was told it was a dybbuk, but didn't know what the word meant. Soon after, whenever she would open the box it came in or touch the doll, she would suffer from terrifying nightmares of "shadow people." This continued for several months until her son took it from to sell it. It sold for $17.49.
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