Online bid could be the death of you

The online auction house that brought us commemorative cigarette butts, Orlando Bloom's lollipop, and a case of the measles is now offering an all-expenses-paid ticket to the other side.

Bids are being taken on Trade Me for a gift certificate entitling the holder to a $5000 funeral.

This once-in-a-lifetime offer - spotted, fittingly enough, on Friday the 13th - is good for a send-off anywhere in New Zealand, anytime in the next 100 years.

Seller Mark Maughan, an Auckland business development manager, won the certificate in a restaurant promotion last year.

But Mr Maughan, at 28, is a young man with a cavalier attitude to death.

Like many of us, he believes that when his number is up he will be able to talk his way out of it. If not, he'll happily be buried "in a cardboard box in the Domain".

He put the funeral certificate up for auction on Thursday night, promptly receiving hundreds of hits.

Trade Me has had a number of bizarre items posted on the site, including a case of measles offered by a mother of sick children.

A cigarette butt, purported to be the last one one smoked at Grey Lynn bar Malt on the eve of the pub smoking ban, fetched more than $7400 at auction last year.

However Trade Me business manager Mike O'Donnell reckons the funeral certificate is the strangest item to come along for some time.

By last night there had been only one bid - but the questions from would-be bidders (and the replies) were getting rather interesting.