Since Bridgeville, an abandoned town in Northern California, sold for $1.7 million on eBay last month, all kinds of unusual listings have popped up on the Web auction site.

This month, the site (www.ebay.com) has hit a crescendo of nuttiness.

One jokester who read about Bridgeville decided to sell his family. Los Angeles TV writer Steven Young described his perhaps-not-so-loved ones as an “attractive, loving, family of four” and started the bidding at $5 million.

Young pledged a lifetime of companionship to the winner and even volunteered to adopt his patron’s name.

Joke or not, eBay bans the sale of humans or their body parts and swiftly yanked the item.

Also this month, a magazine autographed by Apple founder and chief executive Steve Jobs drew bids up to $2,274 but the seller, who would identify himself in an e-mail exchange only as a former Apple worker named Dave, said the high bid fell short of his reserve price. He said he hadn’t decided whether he might offer it to the high bidder anyway.

Autograph buffs scoffed that even George Washington’s John Hancock typically sells for less than $1,000.

Another unusual–and unsuccessful–eBay auction this month was for an undeveloped Caribbean island. Thatch Clay, a 230-acre tract in the U.S. Virgin Islands, was offered in three parcels and drew $4.5 million worth of bids before the sale ended Thursday without reaching the seller’s reserve price.

Maybe the bidding will be better on an opulent Ottawa riverfront home–a 12,000-square-foot mansion built by would-be tech tycoon Mac Brown, asking price $2.1 million Canadian (about $1.37 million U.S.). Brown’s Rebel.com tech firm went into receivership last year.

Not everyone is amused by the twists and turns of commerce on eBay.

Paramus, N.J., police officer Steve Klink was furious when someone sold him a set of damaged speakers on eBay. In response, he started a Web site (www.ebayersthatsuck.com) with a forum on which victimized bidders can gripe about eBay scams.