Trade Me's top listings of 2021 (so far)

Our most popular auction of 2021 so far was a faded $5 note. This was no ordinary note, however, according to seven-year-old Zayne the seller.

After swimming at Sumner Beach for the afternoon with his family in January, Zayne was catching his last wave when something in the water caught his eye. Floating in the surf was a $5 note. Zayne thought he was rich! He swam back to shore and ran along the beach to show his mum and dad. So, they decided to list is onsite to see if they could get more than five bucks for it.

177,000 views later, Zayne really was rich and the $5 note sold for $1,000. It just goes to show, a good description goes a long way.

Zayne plans to buy a bright orange motorbike with the money, just like his dad's.

We've seen a lot of uniquely shaped fruit and vegetables over the years. Who could forget the penis-shaped kumara that raised $245 for prostate cancer in 2019?

In 2021, however, it was a spud-tacular vegetable that caught our eye, just one week before Valentine's Day.

Warwick31 from the North Shore dug up heart-shaped potato just a week before the annual day of love. He decided it might be the perfect addition to a romantic meal with someone special on February 14th so he listed it for sale.

Our members had 'grate' fun in the Q&A with one member saying they didn't know if this spud would 'appeel' to everyone.

The little spud sold for $100 to a Wellington-based member.

Yet another oddly shaped vegetable made its way on to Trade Me in February, appropriately named 'sexy legs'.

A mother and son from Ashburton were out in the garden digging up potatoes when they found a strange looking carrot.

34,000 views later and 'sexy legs' was sold for $46 with all proceeds going to The Salvation Army.

A head-to-toe stormtrooper costume made by Aucklander Drew May made a lot of Star Wars fans excited in January when it was listed for sale onsite. 

The outfit came complete with helmet, bodysuit, gloves, neck seal, size 11 boots an E11 blaster and holster - everything a fan would need. It even had full approval from the 501st legion, an international fan-based organisation dedicated to constructing screen-accurate replicas of stormtrooper armour. 

According to the seller it was worn for a number of events over the years including when he attended the premier for episode seven but it was time to find a new home.

The costume sold for $2,499 after 19,500 views. 

Who could forget the Smeg knife promotion that had Kiwis all over the country trying to track down more stickers and collect the full kitchen set?

Each time New World or Countdown release a new collectables range or sticker promotion we see searches for these collectible items surge.

Just after New World launched the sticker promotion in November we immediately started to see searches for the little stickers onsite. In fact during the three month promotion we saw 600,000 searches for Smeg onsite. 

Collectable items like these are always fun to trade and collect your way to a full set, so it's no surprise they found their way onto Trade Me. If you didn't manage to collect the set, thankfully there are still a few up for sale onsite.