Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009

Bubble-Gum Pop

It's no wonder Britney Spears cracked: back in 2004, she'd gotten so big that even her saliva was a hot commodity. Bidding on one piece of Spears' gently used chewing gum reached $14,000 on eBay. The entrepreneur who listed it turned out to have been bidding against himself to jack the price up, so that high-water mark doesn't really count. But several of the 20 or so run-of-the-mill wads that were listed went for as much as $100. Many came with photos or stories from the event at which the gum was obtained. Some, not surprisingly, were fakes: one seller reportedly offered a piece of Spears' gum from the 2004 MTV Video Music Awards that "still [had] her teeth marks in it" only to be exposed after media reports noted the pop princess hadn't been at the show.