Two sisters from Virginia sold their Illinois-shaped cornflake on eBay Friday night for $1,350. "We were biting our nails all the way up to the finish, seeing what would happen," said Melissa McIntire, 23. "There's a lot of relief involved."
The winner of the auction, which lasted more than a week, is the owner of a trivia Web site who wants to add the cornflake to a traveling museum.
"We're starting a collection of pop culture and Americana items," said Monty Kerr of Austin, Texas. "We thought this was a fantastic one." Kerr owns TriviaMania.com and said he will likely send someone to Virginia to pick up the flake by hand, so it won't be damaged.
This isn't the first cornflake that Kerr has tried to buy. He said he purchased a flake billed as the world's largest, but that by the time it was delivered it had crumbled into three pieces.
McIntire and her sister Emily, 15, listed the cornflake on eBay last week, but eBay canceled the auction, saying it violated the Web site's policy against selling food.
The sisters restarted their eBay auction, advertising a coupon redeemable for their cornflake instead of the cereal itself.
The McIntires said they'll likely use the money for a family vacation.
Copycat items have popped up on eBay, including cornflakes shaped like Hawaii and Virginia. There's also been a potato chip shaped like Florida, and Illinois cornflake paraphernalia, including T-shirts and buttons.
