Most Expensive Video Game:
“Stadium Events”, Factory Sealed, NES
Price: $35,100
After selling only 200 copies this ancient game gem was recalled due to a rebranding modification and is now considered to be the rarest NES title ever sold in stores. Only 3 copies in a factory-sealed condition have survived these long years. Quick, check your grandpa’s attic, maybe it’s still there!
Most Expensive Bottle of Champagne:
Goût de Diamants (Taste of Diamonds) Limited Edition
Price: $1,867,000
Made exclusively from Grand Cru grapes, this bottle of fizzy goodness is usually adorned with a magnificent Swarovski crystal in the very center of a diamond-shaped logo, which, BTW, looks a lot like the Superman sign. But that’s just the “poor man’s” Goût de Diamants. The limited edition throws in a bunch of white gold and replaces the “tiny” Swarovski with shiny 19-karat flawless white diamond. Don’t be fooled, though, the champagne inside is exactly the same, so unless you have a few millions lying around, just get the “cheap” version.
Most Expensive Sports Card:
1909-11 T206 Honus Wagner
Price: $2,800,000
What’s all the fuss about a small scrap of paper with a guy’s picture in it? Is it really worth almost 3 million dollars? Back in the day, athletes advertised a lot of things, one of those things were cigarettes. Honus Wagner, a Pittsburgh Pirates player, was against telling his young fans that “smoking is cool”, so the American Tobacco Company had to pull the cards with his pretty face from circulation. However, 200 cards (just like that NES game) managed to slip through and made it to the market, making it the Holy Grail of baseball cards.
Most Expensive Comic Book:
Action Comics #1
Price: $3,207,852
Comic books are for nerds, huh? What about the first issue of Action Comics? It’s so rare and expensive, you could probably be settled for life if you sold one. It’s features the first ever appearance of the iconic superhero Superman. Only about 50 copies of this legendary comic book still remain in existence nowadays, all of which are safely hidden in private collections. You should really pay your gramps a visit sometime and see if he has one of these too.
Most Expensive Piece of Paper Currency:
1890 United States Small Seal $1000 Treasury Note
Price: $3,290,000
The only known copy of this piece is referred to as the “Grand Watermelon”, due to the uncanny resemblance of the 0’s on the reverse side of the note to watermelons. And once again we see the magical number “200”, which is the number of banknotes that were originally printed.
Most Expensive Coin:
723 (A.D.) Umayyad Gold Dollar
Price: $6,029,400
From banknotes to pennies! Okay, not exactly. A 12-centuries-old Umayyad dinar is the most valuable coin in the whole world. Right after a one-tonne gold Kangaroo coin, but comparing these two would be cheating. You can’t even fit a 2000 lbs coin in your pocket anyway! The Umayyad dinar was purchased in 2011 at a Morten & Eden auction by an anonymous buyer for 6 million bucks, and has not been seen in public since.
Most Expensive Antiquity:
The Guennol Lioness
Price: $57,161,000
It’s a small statue of a lioness, nothing too fancy. Unless you counter in the fact that this baby is 5000 years old! Yeah, it was made in the same era when the humans were developing the writing system, cities were being built in the ancient Mesopotamia, and some fool was tinkering with a chunk of limestone thinking “hey, this would make a sweet lioness statue!”
When you really think about it, it blows your mind.
Most Expensive Sculpture:
“L’homme au doigt”, Alberto Giacometti
Price: $141,300,000
Giacometti is considered to be one of the most influential sculptors in history, with 3 of his most famous works being in the top ten most valuable pieces of art of all time. Is he a genius or a wacko? Why not both? Just look at this creepy “L’homme au doigt”, it is anything but normal, and yet it was sold for over $140 M.
Most Expensive Man-Made Object:
International Space Station (ISS)
Price: $160,000,000,000 (and rising)
The United States government has spent over $100,000,000,000 on ISS, and the partner nations added a few billions here and there. It costs approximately $3,000,000,000 per year to keep this giant science machine afloat. You might think that it’s a lot of money but if you only knew how much the US is wasting on their military and bringing democracy to oil-rich countries, you’d understand how cheap the ISS really is.
Most Expensive Substance:
Antimatter
Price: $62,500,000,000,000/gram
Technically speaking, the ISS is the most expensive thing, but let’s face it, if 1 gram of anything costs a third of that space goliath, it’s going to be a number freaking one. So, what is this elusive antimatter? Simply put it’s matter consisting of antiparticles: same mass, but opposite charge, quantum spin, and a bunch of other physics black magic. It’s been already “produced” in infinitely small, yet detectable, amounts in a CERN experiment giving the scientists 38 whole anti-hydrogen atoms, for 1/10 of a second. Needless to say, 1 g of this stuff would take billions upon billions so let’s put it on kickstarter! Unraveling the mysteries of the universe one crowdfunding campaign at a time.
