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This is where I disagree with the rest of society. Dead people are dead and don’t have rights, so I don’t see how most skulls would be unethical.
So the real question is will it upset the living and how much do you want to accommodate those people’s feelings? I’m not sure there’s a clear and unambiguous answer to this question.
I think it's a murkier area than you're thinking. What if the skull was of a slave or of a Holocaust victim? I think selling such skulls would be highly unethical.
Does it matter? I understand this could be emotionally sensitive for some people but the only reason I could see this being relevant is if my purchase somehow induced more slavery or genocide. That seems very unlikely—in fact I can think of a number of common purchases people make all the time without a second thought that are far more likely to encourage such crimes.
One of the major markers of Homo sapiens becoming people, arguably the earliest and almost universally shared human ritual, is burying the dead. Respect for our dead.
Does everyone need a big ass casket in the ground? No. But going “it’s just emotional” to folks who were emotionally attached to someone who died is a bit flippant/reductionist for my taste.
It could also be a bunch of people like me who just dont care, and would totally sell their future empty skull for cash for the family.
I actually want to be cremated and have my remains made into some gems, and I wanted my skull to be kept and the gems mounted into the eyes. My wife vetoed that idea, I thought it would be hilarious. She didn't like the "fine, I'll just get a generic crystal skull or something then" response.
Anyway, once the brain bucket has no more brain to be a bucket for, I personally would be fine with it getting sold off. Couldn't tell you if its what it is or not, but I can definitely see there being plenty of people willing to sell it, without it being some sort of victim of something. I also think its much more likely to not be a victim of something.