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eBay comes of age

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Online auction site turns 18 years old.

A piece of chewing gum said to be have been discarded by Sir Alex Ferguson reportedly fetched almost £400,000 this week.

It was recovered after the former Manchester United boss, famed for chewing furiously on the touchline, took charge of his final game last Sunday.

Bids for the chewing gum, in a presentation case, flooded into eBay with the money going to charity.

The auction website, which started with the sale of a broken laser pointer, is set to be all grown up by turning 18 in a few weeks.

In the UK more than 17 million unique visitors buy and sell every month.

There are now around 60 million live listings on the UK site, triple the 20 million just four years ago.

Globally the mobile apps have been downloaded more than 90 million times.

As the online auction site gets set to mark its milestone birthday, here’s a look at some of the weird, wonderful and frankly downright bizarre things that have been put up for sale.

He’s garnering a bit of a bad boy reputation but Justin Bieber was still showing his good side when he auctioned off locks of his floppy hair for charity for £25,000.

And the space suit he wore at the 2011 Super Bowl fetched $5800 when returning X Factor judge Sharon Osbourne put it on eBay with the cash going to her cancer charity.

Britney Spears has a couple of eBay beauties. A London hotel waiter sold a bit of chewing gum she’d discarded, while another bidder made even more money by putting a half-eaten sandwich she’d left behind on a plate up for grabs.

At least as bizarre was half-eaten toast left by One Direction’s Niall Horan he didn’t like the Vegemite at an Aussie TV show that was offered up for more than £50,000.

And a fan paid just over $1000 for a similarly partially-scoffed slice of Justin Timberlake’s French toast.

Nosh in a variety of forms has gone for dosh.

A Florida woman kept a grilled cheese sandwich that was said to bear a resemblance to the Virgin Mary for more than a decade before seeing bidding reach $28,000.

A Dorito that looked like the Pope’s hat went for $1200 and a cornflake in the shape of the state of Illinois was snapped up for $1350.

Former Star Trek star William Shatner saw $25,000 raised for a good cause by getting his kidney stone from medics after it was removed and putting it on the site.

And Scarlett Johansson’s used tissue she gave her nose a good blow into it on the Jay Leno chat show raised more than $3300 for charity.

Meanwhile someone was prepared to pay more than $500 for Angela Jolie and Brad Pitt’s breath, supposedly caught as they attended a red carpet event.

Bidding for the original Hollywood sign reached $450,000.

Scots star Ewan McGregor managed to get more than £22,000 for UNICEF by auctioning off his old motorbike and Noel Gallagher’s ex Meg Matthews sold £14,000 of their belongings including a set of handcuffs after their split.

James Blunt auctioned a date with his sister and she eventually wed the bidder.

The last ever pic-n-mix from Woolworths went for £14,500, a Warwick man offered up the ashes of the dad who abandoned him as a kid and a Bournemouth man tried to sell his soul before the ad was removed.

Also taken down was an auction for the M6 motorway, put up by a disgruntled driver, but not before bids topped £150,000.

And former PM Margaret Thatcher’s recent death prompted a flood of memorabilia, from a signed Christmas card to a Spitting Image teapot.