Not all horror stories are based on fiction. Some of the objects that make them extremely scary actually exist in our world. The documented circumstances surrounding these things are too compelling to be ignored.
Here are the top 7 scariest items ever sold. But you probably won't want to buy them.
7. Box with dibbook
Price - $ 286
Dibbuk in Jewish mythology is called an evil spirit looking for a sacrifice in which he can dwell. It's a character today scariest horror movies... In the case in question now, the dybbuk moved into a wine box owned by Kevin Mannis, the owner of an antique furniture restoration workshop.
According to Kevin's account, the item belonged to Havel, a Jewish Holocaust survivor. Havela's granddaughter told Mannis that her grandmother never opened it because an evil spirit supposedly lives there.
Mannis, not shy, opened the drawer. It contained two 1920s coins, two strands of hair tied with a rope, a figurine engraved with the Hebrew word “Shalom”, a gold goblet, one withered rosebud, and one candle holder with four octopus tentacles. And on the back wall there was an inscription in Hebrew.
After the box was taken over by Mannis, he began to suffer from nightmares and his mother suffered a stroke on the day he handed her a wine box as a birthday present. Each subsequent owner of the dibbook box claimed to smell cat urine or jasmine flowers, and many of them stopped sleeping peacefully.
Joseph Netzke, a Missouri student, was the penultimate owner of the fateful thing, and put it up on eBay. He honestly warned that the box could be dangerous. As a result, it was bought by Jason Huxton, director of the University Museum in Missouri. He subsequently claimed to be suffering from various health problems, including hives and coughing up blood. Huxton sealed the box and hid it in an unknown place. Let's hope that he will stay there forever.
6. Painting "Hands Resist Him"
Price - $ 1025
In 1972, artist and writer Bill Stoneham painted a picture, recreating the image of a neighbor girl and himself at the age of five, as well as adding Jungian and metaphysical symbolism. The door represents the gateway to the world of dreams, and the hands represent "other lives."
Also known as eBay Haunted Picture and eBay Creepy Picture, this painting became famous thanks to viral memes that surfaced on the Internet in early 2000. At this time it was put up for sale.
According to the seller, the painting causes anxiety and health problems, and its characters move at night, and even sometimes leave the canvas. Also included in the description was the seller's disclaimer of any consequences in case the brave buyer still decided to purchase this lot.
5. Painting "Martyr"
Cost - $ 1950.
This damn painting lay in the attic of Sean Robinson's grandmother for 25 years before he inherited it. Grandma told Sean that the painting was painted using blood and paint mixed together, and that the creator killed himself immediately after completing the work on Martyr. She claimed to have heard mysterious voices and crying, and also saw a dark male figure in her home. These events frightened the elderly woman so much that she removed the painting out of sight.
After Robinson inherited the painting, his family got into trouble. His son fell down the stairs, and then his wife felt someone stroking her hair and heard a scream in the dark.
At one time, The Anguired Man could be purchased for £ 1,500 (almost $ 2,000). It is now presumably not for sale.
4. Obsessed doll Annabelle
The price is $ 2,500 per replica.
From paintings and boxes, we move on to toys, which ideally should be the personification of kindness and comfort. However, the fourth number on the list of the most terrible and expensive things in the world has nothing to do with kindness. And if you watched the films "The Curse of Annabelle" or "The Conjuring", then you will probably agree that giving such a doll to a child is at least silly.
The film is based on the events of a second-hand doll donated to a nurse named Donna in 1970. In the room where the doll was, strange things began to happen: doors opened and closed by themselves, the toy itself moved from place to place, and the nurse and her neighbor found notes with requests for help. The medium told the girls that the spirit of its former owner, little Annabelle Higgins, entered the doll.
Donna contacted the occultists Ed and Lorraine Warren. They took the doll to their museum. One motorcyclist who visited the museum with his girlfriend mocked and teased the doll even after Ed warned him not to. On the way back, the motorcyclist lost control and died.
3. Ed Gin's cauldron
Price - $ 2800.
“How can a dirty old cauldron scare me?” A horror-hardened reader might snort. Well, firstly, by the fact that it belonged to the serial killer and necrophile Ed Gin, who hung severed heads on the walls of his house and sewed himself a whole wardrobe of human skin.
And secondly, the fact that it was in this cauldron that Gin kept parts of the bodies of his victims.
The story of this psychopathic killer has formed the basis of many horror films such as In the Light of the Moon, The Silence of the Lambs, and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.
Zach Bagans of Adventures of Ghosts bought this cauldron for $ 2,800 from a woman who used it as a flower pot.
2. Painting "Crying Boy"
Price - $ 5,000 for the original.
The second place in the list of the most creepy and expensive mystical objects is occupied by the work of the famous Italian artist Bruno Amadio (Giovanni Bragolina). Of course it is not the most expensive painting in the world... There are many versions of this painting, some depicting a crying boy, others a girl. An urban legend attributes a "curse" to these reproductions. On September 4, 1985, the British tabloid The Sun reported that an intact copy of Crying Boy was found among the ruins of a burnt house.
Over the next few months, The Sun and other tabloids ran several articles on house fires featuring Crying Boy.
Steve Punt, a British writer and comedian, researched the painting and its history. He concluded that the reproductions of the canvas were treated with some kind of fire-resistant varnish. However, Punt did not take risks and hang such a picture in his house.
The Crying Boy's curse was mentioned in the TV series Wow! in the 2012 episode.
1. Cursed Valentino ring
Price unknown
Rudolfo Valentino was a famous American actor and one of the sex symbols of the silent film era.In 1920, he bought a silver ring set with a semi-precious stone from a jewelry store in San Francisco.
For some reason, this ring attracted the actor, although the seller claimed that the ring was removed from the finger of the murdered man and cursed. Valentino wore the ring during the filming of Young Rajah and his latest film, Son of the Sheikh, shortly after which he died of acute peritonitis.
- After the death of the actor, the ring was given to the actress Pola Negri, who was a close friend of Valentino. She soon fell ill, but recovered a year later.
- Negri handed the ring to young singer Russ Colombo, who was killed by a stray bullet during a shootout between two gangsters.
- Columbo's friend Joe Casino was the next owner of the cursed ring, but only wore it once. And on the same day he died in a traffic accident.
- The ring passed to Joe's brother Casino - Del. He did not believe in mysticism, so he wore jewelry for some time, and nothing bad happened. In Hollywood, they started talking about the "curse of the Valentino ring" - just a terrible story. However, a thief climbed into Del's house and cleaned out the safe, but did not manage to escape with the loot and was shot by a police officer. Guess what they found in the robber's pocket? After all these events, the ring was placed back in the safe of the Casino family. However, this is not the end of the story.
- Director Edward Still, wanting to make a film about Valentino's life, asked Del Casino for a ring. He was warned of the notoriety of this little thing, but neglected the information and handed the ring to the young actor Jack Dunn. He was supposed to play Valentino. Dunn died 10 days later from a rare blood disease.
Now the ring is in the possession of the heirs of the Casino Cause, and it is not known what troubles it still managed to do.