The staying power of McDonald's most popular seasonal item is proving itself once again.
On Monday, McDonald's sold 500 half-gallon containers of its McRib barbecue sauce on a microsite, wholelottaribsauce.com, for $19.99. The sauce, with a label dressed up like a Christmas sweater, sold out in less than one minute.
Just 24 hours after the sellout, more than 10 percent of the supply (54 jugs) had sold on eBay for the average price of $126.37, a net return of more than five times to the sellers. As of Tuesday at 10 am ET, there were 23 others that had been posted to the auction site that had not yet sold.
McDonald's does not sell industrial-sized containers of its sauce. The only known BBQ sauce jug to be used on the 1992 McJordan, a bacon cheeseburger with onions, BBQ sauce, mustard and pickles has been up on eBay for years. The seller has turned down offers upward of $1,000.
The McRib is a pork sandwich, where scraps of meat are restructured to make a boneless patty shaped like a rack of ribs. Its origins come from the U.S. military ready-to-eat meals. It was unveiled nationally in 1981 and discontinued in 1985.
The fast-food giant reintroduced the sandwich in 1989, and it has been a seasonal item since 2005, believed to be a cross between chosen scarcity and as a result of the strain of actually producing the restructured meat at McDonald's scale.
Like every McDonald's limited-edition item, there are those who can't get enough of the McRib. Iowan B.J. Hoffman thinks he is among the biggest consumers. He told KCRG in Iowa that since 1982, when he first fell in love with it, he has eaten "thousands" of McRibs.
The McRib returns this year to McDonalds on Dec. 3.
Darren Rovell is the founder of cllct.com and one of the country's leading reporters on the collectibles market. He previously worked for ESPN, CNBC and The Action Network.