Thursday, February 12, 2009

867-5309 (You *know* that number, don't you?)

This just in, via Kickin' it Old School : 80s Hit 867-5309 Phone Number Sold on Ebay Auction

I'm not old enough to really remember 867-5309/Jenny when it was first a big hit, but I remember hearing it a lot on the radio while I was growing up.  The group responsible, Tommy Tutone, is generally considered a one-hit wonder, but what a hit it was!  The catchy little song about a girl's phone number scrawled on a bathroom wall spawned a frenzy of calls to Jenny at 867-5309 in almost every area code.  

And now, someone has just made a bundle on that number!  A guy in New Jersey who was the proud owner of 201-867-5309 tried to sell it on eBay, in the hopes of getting $40,000 for it, and being able to take a fancy Caribbean vacation.  Now, he can't legally sell the number itself (that's against the phone company's regulations) but he can sell his DJ business that the number is registered to.

The auction gained a lot of interest from the press, and just closed two days ago.  When all was said and done, he wound up getting $186,853.09 for it.  (Some clever bidder bid $1-867-53.09, and got outbid by $100!) You can see it for yourself here.

Shipping was free.

3 comments:

  1. Hey there Jonathan,
    Thanks for the link to Kickin' it Old School.
    It allowed me to come over and discover your blog which I have enjoyed so far. I will be adding a link to your blog over on Kickin' it. It'd be cool if you could add a link to mine in your "recommended sites" section too.
    http://OldSchool.tblog.com

    Thanks for helping to keep the 80s alive and relevant. Old School.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hello again,

    Thanks so much for the link to Kickin it Old School on your site!

    One thing I would request is that you have the main link to the site that hosts my blog and not directly to my blog itself. Could you change the main link to not go to just www.tblog.com, but instead to http://OldSchool.tblog.com ???

    Hope you can do that (did not know how else to contact you, so I left another comment). Thanks again for the link and keep up the good work.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't think that Blogger likes Tblog!
    I've tried to reset the link, but the widget keeps hacking off the "Oldschool" part and replacing it with "www". That's a drag, because I rather enjoy "Kickin it Old School." Let me keep looking into it, and I'll see what I can do.

    ReplyDelete