Real Human Skeleton Briefly For Sale on a MN Facebook Marketplace

This is definitely different from your run-of-the-mill gently used clothes and furniture that you typically find on Facebook Marketplace.

Each area of the state has their own marketplace page, and on the Twin Cities one last Friday a listing showed up for a "real skeleton in a coffin". For just $100 you could've been the owner of this, if you acted fast enough. The listing was only up for less than an hour.

The person who listed this spooky set was Ross Rogney of Excelsior, MN. Ross told City Pages that this was his first listing on Facebook market place and he wasn't totally expecting the traction he got on the ad.

Ross is a member of a charitable fraternity called OddFellows that is in the process of selling their current building, which means cleaning out and selling things that have accumulated over the years. One of the rituals this group had was coming face-to-face with a human skeleton to teach the lesson that "if one is not living in the service of others, they’re not actually living." They made one of my friends do this on a tour of Zak Bagans Haunted Museum out in Las Vegas. Super uncomfortable.

Before selling the skeleton and coffin on Facebook, Ross consulted with a friend who works as a funeral home. It turned out that the skeleton for sale was "articulated" which means it was reinforced with metal in a way that suggests display and scientific study. It is safe to believe that this person donated their body to be used in scientific research. Ross was hoping a school would buy it, and use the money he made to donate to his OddFellows group.

In the time it took Ross to go on his lunchbreak on Friday, his phone had blown up with people wanting to purchase the skeleton and coffin set. He pulled it off of Facebook immediately.

For the rest of us that didn't get the real thing, we will have to stick to the Halloween decorations that are for sale in Target.