Retro items among site's biggest deals

A motorised couch, vintage pedal car and retro space shoes were some of the most searched Trade Me auctions from Hawke's Bay sellers last year.

The couch, which had been souped-up with a Yamaha motor by Hastings mechanic John Steeg, was the fifth most popular auction from a Bay seller.

It registered nearly 8900 views and sold for $2900.

Equipped with a 2008 Yamaha jog motor, the three-seater couch also came with a stereo system, speedometer and double-crate refreshment trailer. Mr Steeg told Hawke's Bay Today earlier this year it had reached a top speed of 60km/h.

A t-shirt signed by Dunedin local Levi Hawkin, better known for his catch phrase "Nek Minnit" was also a hit with traders. Mr Hawkin had autographed the t-shirt and also penned his well-known line: "Left my scooter outside the dairy ... Nek Minnit!' It received nearly 10,500 views and sold for $950.

Nationally, the right to bring down the quake-damaged Radio Network building in Christchurch rated as the most popular auction on Trade Me during 2012.

Nearly 460,000 views registered for the auction, which reached a winning bid of $26,000.

Six-year-old Jayden Halliwell, who was having cancer treatment at the time, set off the explosion after receiving special permission from the eight demolition companies which combined for the wining bid.

The space on the bottom of a Wellington woman, reserved for a tattoo of the winner's choice, took out second place. Tina Beznec's "Your tattoo on my bum!!" was viewed 355,899 times before being won by Auckland strip club Calendar Girl's with a bid of $12,450.

Trade Me spokesman Paul Ford said several auctions on the 2012 most-viewed list had been "firsts" for the site - including Ms Beznec's tattoo space.

"It's been a pretty creative front from sellers."

An auction for the right to rename a man, which received more than 95,000 views and sold for $2021, had never before been done on Trade Me, he said.

The auction was the eighth most popular auction.

A woman out to make the most of a break-up managed to rake in $355 and 89,688 views for selling the GPS spots to her ex-boyfriend's favourite fishing spaces in the Coromandel.

"I don't think we'd seen anything like this before," Mr Ford said. It was 10th on the most-viewed list for 2012.

Music lovers and Marmite auctions also created lots of traffic on the site during the year, Mr Ford said.

An auction for two days in the studio with Neil Finn and the sale of an original Miles Davis 1955 signed single were the third and fourth most viewed auctions.

Marmite auctions took out the fifth and sixth places on the list. A 25kg tub of the black spread registered nearly 153,000 views and sold for $2115. A 500g jar, which had been burnt in a house fire, was checked about 146,000 times and sold for $200.

However, an auction has yet to rival the 2006 sale of a handbag used by ex-All Black Tana Umaga to whack his Hurricanes' team mate Chris Masoe - the most popular in the site's history.

"More than 1 million people viewed that ... and that was before we had Facebook or any social media," Mr Ford said.

"It would be a heck of a lot more now if it went up," he added.