Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Casino Bites on Sandwich

From Associated Press

November 23, 2004

HOLLYWOOD, Fla. — Looks like Diana Duyser's going to get some really nice bread for her EBay item — $28,000 for a 10-year-old grilled cheese sandwich that she believes bears the image of the Virgin Mary.

Bidding on the Internet auction house closed Monday night. The winning bidder wasn't disclosed on the website, but was identified by the Miami Herald as GoldenPalace.com, an online casino.

Photos posted on the site show what can be viewed as a woman's face emblazoned on the triangular half-sandwich, a bite taken out of one end.

GoldenPalace.com executives said they were willing to spend "as much as it took."

"It's a part of pop culture that's immediately and widely recognizable," spokesman Monty Kerr told the newspaper in a story on the Herald's website. "We knew right away we wanted to have it."

The new owners of the sandwich didn't want to risk it getting lost in the mail, so Kerr and Steve Baker, chief executive of GoldenPalace's management company, Cyberworld Group, flew to South Florida on Monday to meet Duyser and make arrangements for a sandwich handover.

Duyser, 52, said she had kept her sandwich in a clear plastic box on her nightstand for 10 years.

She said the sandwich had never sprouted a spore of mold.

Copyright 2004 Los Angeles Times

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-cheese23nov23,1,4176200.story?coll=la-headlines...

[F6 note -- other articles are reporting that the new owners plan to take the sandwich on a world tour]