What is unacceptable to sell?

jennyjelly

I often see things at boot sales that I really don't think are 'nice' to sell (furs and various bits of dead animal, stuff like that), but today I saw someone asking £10 for a memorial order of service from Harry Patch's funeral. I thought that was awful.

soolin

I think certain things affect certain people. For instance there was a huge surge for Diana memorials after the Princess of Wales died, including things connected with her funeral, is that any worse than a memorial to a more recent less famous death? Likewise body bits from some quite famous people are available to see in glass display cabinets in museums all over the world, that has to be the final oddity I reckon. Egyptian mummies are dead people, yet we all go and gawp and they are bought and sold as a commodity.

My local auction house does a fair trade in taxidermy items, I can barely even look at them as they 'squick' me so much, yet people pay hundreds of pounds for some items.

I don't think there is any right answer here.

jennyjelly

I suppose everyone has their own morals. It just seems sick to be making money out of someone's death. Perversely, I think it's worse that it was a tenner at a boot sale than if it were a higher price at an auction house - just feels a bit grubby really.

PopeSock

jennyjelly wrote: »

I suppose everyone has their own morals. It just seems sick to be making money out of someone's death.

Unless you donate five million to a UK Servicemen's charity, in which case you can go right on selling your book and giving talks for a stupidly large amount of money.

Pembroke

I'd rather someone sold on a mink stole that they didn't want rather than have someone go out and shoot a new one.

Crowqueen

soolin wrote: »

I think certain things affect certain people. For instance there was a huge surge for Diana memorials after the Princess of Wales died, including things connected with her funeral, is that any worse than a memorial to a more recent less famous death? Likewise body bits from some quite famous people are available to see in glass display cabinets in museums all over the world, that has to be the final oddity I reckon. Egyptian mummies are dead people, yet we all go and gawp and they are bought and sold as a commodity.

My local auction house does a fair trade in taxidermy items, I can barely even look at them as they 'squick' me so much, yet people pay hundreds of pounds for some items.

I don't think there is any right answer here.

Agreed.

A friend talks about going to Reading Museum (or any museum with lots of Victorian mounted animals that they don't want to get rid of but can't just store somewhere, so they put them out in a barely-plausible and bitterly ironic "ecology" exhibit...) as "going to the petting zoo morgue".

The arguments about fur coats go back and forward all the time on the official forums; we found a particularly disgusting listing or set thereof of a man selling raw materials for taxidermists, but for me that's worse than memorabilia, though I don't like the idea of actual order of services from funerals, that's the point where I draw the line.

However, I have a Russian letter in my stamp collection from the war years. It's triangular, which usually means it was dropped from a train and left for someone else to actually post, which means it possibly might be from the gulag or associated areas. That's not particularly gruesome to me, it's a historical artifact which possibly ought to be in a museum, but it's not valuable enough to be worth finding somewhere to donate it. I also have a postcard from Poland with a Hitler stamp on it announcing someone's death to the recipient in Polish (which I read and write quite well). Again, sad, but a historical artifact nonetheless (though I don't otherwise collect Hitler stamps).

There are things that are banned, but everyone has a line they draw somewhere on the spectrum too.

macfly

You might also move your moral line if someone offered you a hundred grand fur coat for free.
I wear leather shoes. That's my moral high ground done for.
As for making money out of someones death, a biography can do that. I just must be more concerned with the living.
And for the poster who thinks mink should be saved, wait until you see a henhouse after one has got in. It will kill all of them.

fordkamaz

I think you can sell pretty much anything apart from dead things, human organs and used underwear lol

xxx

BLT_2

fordkamaz wrote: »

I think you can sell pretty much anything apart from dead things, human organs and used underwear lol

xxx

Don't bet on it, there was a thread on here recently about a guy who was making a fair bit selling used underwear.

Ebays main criteria appears to be that they make as much money as possible, that they force you to use their overpriced paypal service and that you believe without any doubt that actually give a damn about their customer (ok that last one was pretty unrealisitic )

bluebellbunny

macfly wrote: »

You might also move your moral line if someone offered you a hundred grand fur coat for free.
I wear leather shoes. That's my moral high ground done for.
As for making money out of someones death, a biography can do that. I just must be more concerned with the living.
And for the poster who thinks mink should be saved, wait until you see a henhouse after one has got in. It will kill all of them.

Have you seen how mink are farmed for their fur and then skinned alive and left to die from shock? These are not the mink that come and kill chickens. And why is a mink killing chickens any worse than a human eating meat? Leather shoes are a byproduct of beef so if you eat meat, it is good that all parts of the animal are used.

EssexGirl

bluebellbunny wrote: »

Have you seen how mink are farmed for their fur and then skinned alive and left to die from shock? These are not the mink that come and kill chickens. And why is a mink killing chickens any worse than a human eating meat? Leather shoes are a byproduct of beef so if you eat meat, it is good that all parts of the animal are used.

That's weird, I saw a programme the other day and the mink were gassed by engine fumes in a little chamber on the back of a farm vehicle. Dead in less than 30 seconds. Think it was called Kill it, skin it, wear it.
Apparently that is the standard way to kill mink, and it's the animal lobbyists who have spread the skinned alive rumour as skinning alive would spill blood and ruin the pelts therefore making them unsellable.