America for sale

Enjoy freedom? Have a big family and need lots of space? Have we got a real estate deal for you!

While it’s the last place we’d ever expected to find it, with less than three hours left to go, a seller on Yahoo! Japan’s eBay-style auction site Yahoo! Auctions is selling off none other than the title deed for the entire USA (Alaska not included).

Click the link for your chance to grab an absolute bargain.

That’s right, folks: the land of freedom, Texas burgers and blockbuster movies could be all yours, for as little as 6,000 yen (US$66)!

The seller started the bidding off at a miniscule 500 yen last Tuesday, advertising the handwritten title deed as something that he had simply stumbled upon.

▼ The “title deed”

the title deed

Item description:

“I discovered the land deed for the United States of America, so I decided to auction it off. Please note that Alaska is not included.

The title deed reads: ‘The person in possession of this deed is the lawful owner of the United States of America, and with it up to 12 nautical miles of territorial waters. Singed, Franklin D. Roosevelt.’”

Quite why the deed is written in Japanese is anyone’s guess, and – as many Japanese Netizens point out – had Mr. Roosevelt genuinely been fond of the Japanese script, he may have benefited from a little extra writing tuition since his characters are pretty untidy. On the plus side, the deed does appear to be laminated, meaning that you’ll be able to show it off for years to come, waving it in the faces of other patrons in restaurants to get the best table and cutting in line at movie theatres while shouting “I own you, peasants!” and sipping margaritas.

At the time of writing, there have been 41 bids for the item (which includes free postage and packaging, you may be interested to know) and there is less than three hours to go until the lot closes, so if you want to skip a few rungs on the property ladder you’d better get moving.

Just think about it: all this could be yours!

USA for sale

The seller accepts Visa, MasterCard, JCB, and, of course, American Express credit cards.

*Update* The bidding has ended, and it looks like the original leader in Japan grabbed the deed! Just 6,000 yen for an entire country. I wonder if they’ll go public and start ordering people to move their stuff out any time soon?

Source: Yahoo! Auctions via ハムスター速報