Attention Collectors: 2,000-Year-Old Penis Statue Headed To Auction

If you're looking to buy a gift for that special someone in your life who already has everything, might I suggest a 2,000-year-old Celtic statue of a penis?

If they already have one of those, then... well, then I'm really going to need to know why.

Noonan's will auction this ancient figurine with a disproportionately sized wang next week along with a slew of other artifacts.

It's believed that the figurine is of the Roman god Mercury. What's with the male appendage hanging from a hinge (the figure is literally a hanging dong) isn't clear. There aren't too many people around from back then to ask.

How this artifact landed on the auction block is quite something. Paul Shepheard and his wife, Joanne, are avid metal detectorists, meaning they like to cruise around looking for the metal junk of civilizations from the past.

They were in Haconby, Lincolnshire where they caught win that there was something buried in a nearby field. The couple trucked out there with their metal detectors, found the spot, dug about ten inches down, and then — boom — penis statue.

If you laugh at this it only means you don't understand fine antiquities. (Noonan's)

It Was Quite The Find, This Celtic Penis Statue

“What I love about metal-detecting is that absolute surprise of what you find, and this certainly came out of the blue!” Shepheard said.

Nigel Mills, the coin consultant at Noonan's explained the significance of the 5.5 cm (just over two inches) figurine “hinged oversized phallus.”

“ would have had symbolic powers of good luck and warding off evil spirits and may have served as a locking mechanism as a buckle to hold a belt and scabbard for a sword,” he said, per the New York Post.

That is certainly possible, or perhaps putting a comically oversized hog on something the size of a keychain was as funny in the first century as it is now.

“There is nothing quite like it, I am hoping it will attract a lot of attention,” Mills added.

Well, Nigel, it's certainly tough to miss.

The auction house expects that the figurine could bring in as much as $1,440, which is way less expensive than I thought it would be. Still, it's way outside my ancient Celtic wang statue budget.

Follow on Twitter: @Matt_Reigle