Own a piece of the Balloon Boy saucer

Remember the balloon boy hoax of 2009? Richard and Mayumi Heene claimed their 6-year-old son had floated away in the saucer-shaped contraption only to later be revealed hoaxsters trying to land a reality TV show. Soon, you'll be able to own a piece of the prank. Michael Fruitman of Mike's Stadium Sportcscards in Denver, Colorado paid Heene's attorney $2500 for the saucer at auction. He's putting it on display for a bit before chopping it up for "souvenirs." "Balloon Boy Saucer To Go On Display In Colo. Store"

• [jaytkay]

  I read that the family moved to Florida. Was that to avoid paying restitution, a la O.J.?

• [Petzl]

  “Fruitman … paid Heene’s attorney $2500 for the saucer at auction”

  Meaning Heene’s attorney accepted the balloon as (partial) payment for his services?
  I can see that negotiation.  “Gee, I don’t have cash.  But do you accept balloons?”

• [jnordb]

  If I were to purchase memorabilia related to a hoax, I’d rather have a Sasquatch suit… 

• [Rob Britt]

  this is rewarding people for being publicity seeking a-holes. first the idiot from the sports card place and the secondary moron market. Hopefully no one wants a  piece of this and Fruitman (appropriate name?) has to eat the 2500.

  • [Ad_absurdum]

    Unfortunately people will eat this up.  I’m sure he’ll get well over $2500 for the pieces of it.
    I don’t know why the authorities didn’t confiscate the balloon as part of a crime.

• [Cornan]

  Wow. That was in 2009. I feel ooooold now.

• [awjt]

  Fruit Man?  

• [Mark_Frauenfelder]

  I’ll bet no one buys any of these pieces of the balloon.

  • [penguinchris]

    Agreed. I really don’t know why people think they can make money from this kind of thing. Yes people collect similar things, like crime memorabilia, but this is to notorious crime memorabilia as would be collecting TV props from Survivor vs. props from Star Trek or something.

    It’s funny, the immediate gut reaction one might get upon taking possession of something like this would probably be that you could make some money on it. But it should only take a few seconds worth of thought to realize that no matter how stupid people are, no one is stupid enough to actually want a piece of this, much less even remember the incident at this point.

• [BarBarSeven]

  How can a “Fruitman” be a vulture?

• [jeligula]

  I wish I could say this lawyer is overestimating people’s stupidity, but I cannot.  I bet he makes five figures off this stunt.

• [ackpht]

  This way, the secondary morons can sell their pieces on eBay, to service the tertiary morons, and to simultaneously create an online ersatz balloon-piece market that reaches out to the quaternary morons.

• [BBNinja]

  Pass.  Who would want a part of this a-hole’s crappy balloon?

• [patelanjali]

  wow
  so nice…

• [James B]

  The emergency services that these people, by their own admission, fraudulently incurred, come from one of the counties where I pay a substantial bit of property tax.  The proceeds from this should be going back to help put gas in the fire trucks, not to some friggin lawyer.