Brasenose listed in eBay auction prank
That’s your lot: the auction was stopped when bidding reached £10m
IT'S OVER five centuries old, home to a glittering ensemble of alumni from William Golding to Michael Palin, and a magnet for hordes of tourists that flock to the historic college each year. And last Saturday night it became available for six pounds on eBay. Students and college authorities at Brasenose College, founded in 1509, were surprised to discover that the distinguished institution had been put up for auction on the online trading website this week.
The item provoked a flurry of bids that eventually reached over £10 million before the auction was shut down by eBay at the request of University proctors. Internet surfers looking for a bargain were enticed by a package that promised a sundial, the college boat club, Brasenose's infamous unicorn penis and all 510 students – described as “generally in quite a worn condition, though a few star buys”.
The seller – David Green, a Lincoln student whose “drunken prank” has landed him in hot water with the University authorities – explained that the rival college was built on Lincoln land and needed to make way for a new Lincoln bar and sauna complex. “I have been led to understand that their lease is £1 per year”, Green told The Oxford Student. “They are our old rivals, and light-hearted pranks are a part of that relationship.
Brasenose was described on eBay as “surplus to requirements” and “going cheap” in the ‘used collectibles' section of the website. The scale of the multi-million pound bidding war shocked observers at both Lincoln and Brasenose – not least Green himself, who planned to mail-order the college to the winning bidder: “I didn't expect to raise much; quite frankly, I wouldn't pay more than about a tenner for the whole lot.
“Let's face it, when it's been moved and they can't pretend the Rad Cam is part of the college anymore it's not going to be much use other than as a slightly garish drinks cabinet for an eccentric billionaire somewhere.” Despite bidding escalating into the millions within hours of the item appearing on the site, Brasenose authorities appeared unconcerned at the imminent removal of their college from the Oxford landscape.
Brasenose bursar John Knowland said: “This sort of light-hearted activity is a tribute to the ingenuity of Oxford students and to their ability to give us all a bit of fun.” However, university proctors failed to see the funny side of what would have been one of eBay's largest ever transactions. They informed the company the item was being advertised fraudulently and Brasenose College was consequently removed from the site.
Green has been fined £50 by Lincoln for bringing the college into disrepute and has been ordered to write a personal letter of apology to the Brasenose Provost. He will also appear in Brasenose at 4pm today to make a personal apology The suspended auction, in which Brasenose was recommended as “a fine complement to any suburban home or garden”, joins a long list of remarkable items that eBay has stepped in to remove from its website once the company realised it was being conned.
Early last year bids for the entire American state of West Virginia reached $100 million before eBay deemed the sale illegal. And last Easter a Bavarian couple were investigated by police for human trafficking after putting up their own daughter for sale on the website. Reflecting on the demise of his own auction, Green took a conciliatory tone: “Lincoln is a cramped little college and we really could have done with the extra space that the Brasenose land would have given us.
But I guess we'll just have to live with our neighbours for now.”
Additional reporting by Charlottte Jackson and Lucy Winder.
24th Feb 2005