Occasionally some truly spooky and scary items can find their way to the auction block. In honor of Halloween, we highlighted a few of the spookiest auction items that have made the headlines over the last few years.
Freddy Kruger has been terrorizing the screens and dreams of children and adults since he first slashed his way onto Elm Street in 1984. On October 25, 2014 the famous bladed glove worn by Robert Eglund in the filming of A Nightmare on Elm Street 5: The Dream Child sold for an undisclosed sum at auction.
This might be an item to keep as far away from your bed as possible.
In 2009, a New York City auction house sold a collection of medieval torture instruments that was valued at more than $3 million. Many of the devices dated back to the 16th century, and the collection as a whole had been called “the creepiest in the world.”
The items weren’t part of the collection of some sadist, but were actually collected by a Holocaust survivor with more altruistic goals. To him the goal of the collection was to educate people about the depths that humanity was capable of falling to in the hope that they wouldn’t do so again. Some of the proceeds from the auction were donated to Amnesty International to further this goal.
These kits were popular in Victorian England and would feature dozens of items to make a vampire hunt successful: wooden stakes, silver knives, pistols loaded with silver bullets, holy water, crosses, rosaries, prayer books, and garlic.
In 2012 one of these kits dated to the later 19thcentury sold at a British auction for £7,500 (about $12,100). These antique kits have also made an appearance on the popular Discovery Channel show, Auction Kings.
Watch your back, Edward Cullen.
In 2011 items that belonged to a real-life madman went on the auction block. Ted Kaczynski, better known as The Unabomber was arrested at his Montana cabin in 1996. While he is currently serving a life sentence in a federal penitentiary in Colorado, the proceeds from the auction were passed on to his victims’ families.
Items including his hoodie and aviator glasses that were included in the now-infamous police sketch, and the typewriter he used to write his famous manifesto, fetched tens of thousands of dollars.
Having your own private island to get away to has to be part of most everyone’s dreams right? If you won the bid for the island of Poveglia off the coast of Venice, Italy, you might find the idyllic island life isn’t that idyllic.
In the Middle Ages, the island served as a quarantine station and dumping grounds for thousands of victims of the Bubonic Plague. In the 20th century, it served as a mental hospital, allegedly run by a doctor who was driven mad by the ghosts of plague victims. The island was abandoned in 1960 and made off-limits to visitors.
Other nicknames for this haunted auction lot are “the island of madness” and simply “hell.”
