Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is also auctioning off her time, a lunch date at Yahoo HQ, on the charity auction site CharityBuzz.

“Find out what it’s like to lead one of the world’s most well-known tech companies, as you join Yahoo! CEO Marissa Mayer over lunch at the company’s Sunnyvale, CA headquarters!” reads the prize description.

With only 2 bids so far, the top one sits at $5,250. CharityBuzz has put an estimated value of $25,000 on the lunch. All proceeds from the auction will benefit the Aspire East Palo Alto Charter School, a K-6 public charter school “dedicated to preparing all students for success in college and beyond.”

Last month, a similar auction took place for a lunch date with Tim Cook at Apple’s Cupertino headquarters. The bidding on that one was fast and furious, with the winning bid totaling $610,000. CharityBuzz put an estimated value of $50,000 on Tim Cook’s lunch – so I guess that means that his time is twice as valuable as Marissa Mayer’s? Right?

If you want to have lunch with Marissa Mayer, you have until June 27th at 3:30 pm EST to place your bid. CharityBuzz says that “polite manners and respect for the generous donor…are a must,” so I guess that rules out any bitching about the recent Tumblr acquisition.

Now, another person has come forward with what they believe to be the world’s most sought-after formula. According to an NBC 11 report, a Ringgold, Georgia man named Cliff Kluge states that the has “accidentally” found the formula.

The man told reporters that he and his wife bought a box of letters at an estate sale. The box contained a cola recipe that Kluge believes is the real deal. He states that it is very similar to the recipe uncovered by This American Life.

Kluge is now auctioning off the formula on eBay, asking for a starting bid of $5 million and a Buy Now price of $15 million.

Coca-Cola has stated, as it always has, that this formula is another in a series of failed attempts to recreate Coca-Cola, and that the only copy of the real thing is locked in a vault in Atlanta.

Wallace Henry Hartley is famous for leading the Titanic’s band to play as passengers were loaded into lifeboats. Hartley and all of the band members died when the ship sank on April 15, 1912. Popular accounts recall that Hartley and his band continued to play until the ship went under. The event was depicted in the 1997 movie Titanic, with the band playing “Nearer My God to Thee” as the horrific events of the ship’s sinking take place.

The Mail reports that the violin, if authentic, could sell for “hundreds of thousands of pounds.” There is also mention that the instrument could sell for a “record price.” The seller of the violin has chosen to remain anonymous, but has claimed that the violin was owned by Hartley’s fiance, who obtained it after Hartley’s body was retrieved.

The item will be auctioned off by Henry Aldridge and Son, a well-known Titanic auctioneer. The company bills itself as the “premier auctioneers in the sale of Titanic and White Star Line Material.”

The Lennon letter is particularly interesting because of its context. The letter is from Lennon to Eric Clapton, and is dated September 29, 1971. It shows that Lennon was hoping to collaborate with Clapton in the years following the break-up of The Beatles. From the letter:

Both of us have been thru the same kind of shit/pain that I know you’ve had—and I know we could help each other in that area—but mainly Eric – I know I can bring out something great – in fact greater in you that had been so far evident in your music, I hope to bring out the same kind of greatness in all of us – which I know will happen if/when we get together.

At the time of the letter, Clapton had already played with Lennon as a part of the Plastic Ono Band. Clapton also played on the White Album track “While My Guitar Gently Weeps,” written by George Harrison. The Lennon letter is expected to sell for $20,000 to $30,000.

The Ludwig von Beethoven letter is signed and features a “disgruntled tone.” It is expected to sell for $40,000 to $60,000. The Tchaikovsky letter is also signed, and is expected to sell for $10,000 to $15,000. Other letters in the collection not expected to fetch as high a price include letters from the early 1930s from Louis Armstrong, George Gershwin, and Cole Porter.

The letter is now scheduled to be up for auction on eBay from October 8th through the 18th. The opening bid for the letter will $3 million.

The artifact is so highly priced because it contains some of the only candid, straightforward words Einstein laid down regarding his views on religion and god. Though Jewish, he regarded religions as “childish superstitions,” according to his letter. From the text of the letter:

The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weakness, the Bible a collection of honorable, but still purely primitive, legends which are nevertheless pretty childish. No interpretation no matter how subtle can (for me) change this.

The letter goes on to address Einsteins’s Jewish heritage, and touches on his views of the Jewish people as “chosen” by God:

For me the Jewish religion like all other religions is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions. And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people. As far as my experience goes, they are also no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. Otherwise I cannot see anything ‘chosen’ about them.

The auction is being managed by the Auction Cause auction management agency. The company stated in its auction preview that the letter has been stored at a “professional academic institution” in a temperature, humidity, and light-controlled environment. It also said that the authenticity of the letter has been thoroughly established. Those who wish to bid on the letter can pre-qualify to bid at the Auction Cause website.

According to CBS, there was an Apple 1 on auction in New York City. The computer was one of the original six computers that Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak built back in 1976. The demand for such a rare item must surely be high. An Apple fan, or maybe just a technology fan in general, has far outstripped what the original demand was valued at.

When the smoke cleared from what was surely an arduous battle, a victor appeared having won the computer for $374,000. Those in charge of the auction stated that the selling price was two-times higher than what they expected to get for the computer. The last Apple I sold at auction went for $210,000, so here’s hoping the next one goes for over $600,000.

We don’t know who actually bought the computer, but they’re probably going to put in some kind of collection to never be used. Maybe that’s best as I would totally play around with and probably break it.

Here’s a video tour of what went inside the Apple 1 back in the 70s. It shows the technical mastery that Wozniak put into the device. Sure, it’s great to see all the new technology that Apple puts out today, but we should never forget where it came from.

Also according to the auction house, this vehicle’s typical resale value falls somewhere between $50,000 and $63,000 Fortunately for them, this one has something a little extra you don’t get with most late 70′s Porsche models. Included with the car came a complete series of letters to and from Microsoft and Porsche, and the original Washington State USA registration documents naming, none other than Bill Gates himself, as the owner.

Apparently Bill Gates is still a fan of Porsche, because he purchased another one. When he’s not trucking around with his family in their minivan, he has a Porsche stowed away for more appropriate occasions. In fact, it’s a dandy of an automobile, valued at over $225,000. Check out Bill Gates’ current ride, a Porsche 959:

The auction is being held by Hunt Auctions:

We are honored to present a historic live auction event featuring the personal collection of Baseball Hall of Fame member Ted Williams. The live public auction consists of a large quantity of Williams’ personal items including his 1949 Most Valuable Player Award and his 1957 American League Batting Champion Silver Slugger Award. A portion of the proceeds from the sale of the auction will be donated to The Jimmy Fund, a prestigious Boston charity which is forever affiliated with Ted Williams, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, and the Boston Red Sox.

Hunt Auctions will take a commission, obviously, but the main charity taking the spoils is The Jimmy Fund. It was founded in 1948 and has since raised over $750 million to fight cancer in children and adults. They run over 585 charity events each year, involving over 4,000 volunteers.

Hunt Auctions president David Hunt told USA Today that he expects one of the biggest items to be a baseball signed by the Great Bambino, the Colossus of Clout (The Colossus of Clout!) himself, addressed to Williams.

“When you get an event like this, emotional bidding becomes a very big factor. So if you get two or four or six parties that funds are not the concern, it can get very interesting very quick,” he said.

He expects the entire sale to make somewhere between $1-2 million.

Ted Williams was a Boston Red Sox legend through and through, having played his entire career with the organization. He made the All-Star team a whopping 19 times and ended his career with 521 home runs and a .344 batting average. He’s known nowadays for his incredible .400 batting average season from 1941 and he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame in 1966.

[Lead Image courtesy Hunt Auctions' Facebook page]

Could an online auction site help newspapers in the revenue department? Tell us what you think.

"Because of the explosive growth in Internet usage in the past decade, a new revenue opportunity has opened up for newspapers and other local media. Boocoo.com was designed in part to regain revenue lost to online classified advertising and auction sites while giving consumers a secure and competitive alternative rich in local content,” said George Willard Sr., the Chairman, CEO, and Founder of Ranger Data Technologies.

"The massive audience produced by web users, loyal readers, and viewers of hundreds of trusted local media brands combined with Boocoo’s consumer centric site, will result in long term revenue growth for all our partners," said Mr. Willard.

Chicago’s Sun-Times Media is one of the newspaper companies to partner on Boocoo. "Sun-Times Media’s partnership with Ranger Data Technologies will help us to expand the ways we serve residents of the Chicago region," said Hunt Kingsbury, VP and General Manager of Interactive Media for Sun-Times Media. "Boocoo is a great resource for people who want an auction site that is competitive in price and very local. We are excited to offer this to the areas we already serve."

"Boocoo.com is an innovative and exciting approach for the local media to enter the e-commerce transactional marketplace,” said Kip Knight, a former Vice-President of Marketing for eBay North America who serves as a consultant to Ranger Data Technologies. "I also believe sellers should be attracted to the site because it is value priced relative to other online auctions."

I’ve seen a whole lot of people looking for alternatives to eBay, and it will be interesting to see if Boocoo becomes a legitimate contender in the space.

As a special promotion, fees are actually being waived for all consumers for a minimum of two weeks at Boocoo.

What do you think of Boocoo? Comment here.

 

eBay first announced the "5 Free Insertion Fees Every 30 Days" idea about a month ago.  On the front end, it was exactly as advertised, which was nice enough.  Sellers have never enjoyed forking over cash when their products don’t change hands.

The trouble came when sellers noticed that a final value fee of 8.75 percent (or $20 – whichever’s less) could actually cause them to owe eBay more money than usual under certain circumstances.

Now, as the program rolls out, it appears that nothing’s been changed.  Sellers just need to do the math carefully and consider opting out of the new fee structure by using an eBay or third party listing tool.

 

Still, eBay executives have their fingers crossed that the change will result in increased participation.  Lorrie Norrington, president of eBay Marketplaces, said in a statement, "By eliminating the upfront costs of selling on eBay, we hope this new structure will encourage all sellers – new, occasional or experienced – to use the offering as a cost-effective way to sell on our site and earn a little extra cash."