Summers’ Dinner Roll Draws eBay Bids

Still waiting for Lawrence H. Summers to sign your dollar bill? A more delectable collectible is up for auction on eBay: a dinner roll, half eaten by the University president.

Summers purportedly consumed the other half on March 14, when he joined some undergraduates for a meal at the Dunster House faculty dinner.

But the busy president had to rush off to another engagement, so he left behind an unfinished dinner—and half of a roll.

Seeing an opportunity to procrastinate on his economics thesis, one of the students in attendance, Jonathan P. Hay ’06, listed the bread roll with the online auction giant.

“You have a chance to own a roll that has touched the mouth of one of the most influential and compelling figures in America today,” the listing reads. “I bet it even has his saliva on it.”

People are jumping at that chance. The roll had garnered 13 bids as of yesterday evening, propelling its price to $4.25. Bidding ends tonight.

Until then, the item is being securely stored in a Ziploc bag—though Hay, who is also a Crimson sports editor, warns against making a meal of the roll.

“I’m sort of hoping that no one’s buying it to eat it because at this point it’s about a week old,” Hay said.

Some bidders might have even stranger plans for the roll.

“Do you think Larry’s DNA is on the bread roll?” asked one potential bidder, according to Hay. “If I win this auction, can I use saliva DNA to clone Larry?”

Some of the bids have been from Hay’s friends, and the senior said he is willing to waive the $2.00 shipping charge for Harvard affiliates.

But the auction has already earned acclaim outside of Cambridge. The dinner roll has been honored at Way Out Auctions, a website that chronicles some of the stranger items available on eBay.

There, Hay’s listing joins such recent auctions as an “alien implant from my arm,” a french fry in the shape of a dog, and a bottle claimed to contain Elvis’ fart.

—Staff writer Nicholas M. Ciarelli can be reached at ciarelli@fas.harvard.edu.