FED: Saddam's money in demand at online auction

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FED: Saddam's money in demand at online auction

SYDNEY, April 14 AAP - Iraqi bank notes featuring Saddam Hussein's image are provingto be hot property on an online auction site as Australian souvenir hunters claim a pieceof the besieged regime.

Nine auction lots of various Iraqi dinars (banknotes) have been posted for sale onthe continuous online auction site www.SOLD.com.au.

Bids are up to $9 for a set of four notes adorned with Saddam's face, and the virtualhammer still has about three days to fall.

Anna Featherstone from Yahoo! Australia said www.SOLD.com.au suspected the bidderswere serious collectors betting on a currency change or just curious people who wantedtheir own piece of history.

"It's interesting in that the collectibles market is already betting on the removalof Saddam's image from the dinar," she said.

"It's possible there are also Australians just bidding for them as curiosities andto own their own little part of history."

Saddam's fate is still unknown after coalition forces launched a number of assassinationattempts on his life using precision bomb attacks during the war.

Iraq also proved a popular topic for Australian web surfers interested in Middle Easternissues through the Yahoo! search engine.

According to the Yahoo! Buzz Index, the top five most searched for terms by Australiansshowing an interest in events in the Middle East yesterday were Arab television networkal-Jazeera followed by: Iran; Saddam; Saddam Hussein and then Iraq's Information MinisterMohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf - who has kept up a steady stream of denials about the progressof invading forces.

AAP gmw/ph/de

KEYWORD: IRAQ AUST AUCTION