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Rare Ukulele Breaks Goodwill Online Auction Sales Record

Donation Nets Instrumental Funding for Goodwill Career Programs

September 1, 2006

Omaha, NE - An unidentified shopper purchased a rare 1920s "tricone" ukulele for $10,514 on Goodwill's Internet auction site, shopgoodwill.com, making it the site's highest sale on record. The revenues will help fund job training programs offered through Goodwill Industries Inc., Serving Eastern Nebraska and Southwest Iowa (Omaha).

"This rare instrument is just another example of the unique treasures available on shopgoodwill.com and at Goodwill stores everywhere," says George W. Kessinger, President and CEO of Goodwill Industries International. Other treasures found on shopgoodwill.com include an original, signed Picasso, a Sea-Doo watercraft, and a Hot Wheels collection that garnered $2,001 earlier this summer.

Created, owned and operated by Goodwill Industries of Orange County (Santa Ana, CA), shopgoodwill.com boasts nearly 200,000 registered buyers. More than 100 local Goodwill agencies are sellers on the site.

"Job seekers across North America benefit from the generosity of more than 58 million Goodwill donors each year," says Kessinger. "For more than 100 years, Goodwill has been a household name associated with donations of gently-used goods. People trust Goodwill because of our longstanding history in their communities and our mission of putting people to work."

Since its launch in 1999, shopgoodwill.com - the nation's first and only Internet auction site owned and operated by a nonprofit organization - has earned more than $32 million for Goodwill programs in the United States and Canada. Some 13,000 items, selected from the millions of pounds of goods donated to the organization each year, are for sale on the site at any given time.