What Was the First Item Sold on eBay?

Today, you can buy and sell literally anything on eBay, from cars and antiques to clothes and electronics, and everything in between. But back in the mid-1990s, eBay was just getting started, and founder Pierre Omidyar wasn't sure his idea would take off.

Originally known as "AuctionWeb," the online auction website was launched in September 1995 from a spare room in Omidyar's Silicon Valley townhouse. It was the first site to facilitate direct person-to-person auctions. To test his creation, Omidyar listed a $30 laser pointer that he had purchased a few weeks earlier but had stopped working. Amazingly, even though he admitted that it was broken, a bidding war soon began, pushing up the $1 starting price to $14.83. The lucky buyer was Mark Fraser, who figured he would save money by purchasing and fixing the broken gadget rather than buying a new one. He still owns the laser pointer more than two decades later.

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