Most Expensive Music Video Ever

When MTV first went on air in 1981, music videos became an important part of promoting an artist. Nowadays, hardcore fans will even buy DVDs featuring all of their favorite artists’ videos. The most memorable music videos, of course, are usually the most expensive. These are the most expensive music videos in the world.

5. Puff Daddy (featuring The Notorious B.I.G. and Busta Rhymes) – “Victory”
$2.7 million

Taking place in the year 3002 CE, this video features Puff Daddy as Contestant #5. Dennis Hopper and Danny DeVito both make cameos—as a dictatorial president and a live action reporter, respectively—as Contestant #5 is chased through dark streets and rooftops by the armed forces of Chase TV.

4. Madonna – “Bedtime Story”
$5 million

An experimental video set to an equally experimental song, the “Bedtime Story” video consists of surreal, dreamlike images. Throughout the video, Madonna floats, gives birth to doves and ends up having her eyes and mouth transposed.

3. Madonna – “Die Another Day”
$6 million
Another song by the pop diva, this one was released alongside the James Bond film of the same name. The video shows Madonna being tortured in a number of ways while Good Madonna and Bad Madonna duel with a variety of weapons—from fencing foils to harpoon guns—in her subconscious. After its release, “Die Another Day” became the most successful 007 theme since the 80s.

2. Michael Jackson (featuring Janet Jackson) – “Scream”
$7 million

One of Michael Jackson’s most successful videos, “Scream” is a black and white science fiction/pop masterpiece that has both Jacksons dancing along the walls and ceilings of a spaceship while anime and pop art are featured on various displays throughout. The video received widespread approval, including several MTV Video Music Awards and even a Grammy Award for Best Short Form Music Video.

1. 30 Seconds to Mars – “From Yesterday”
$13 million?

The first American music video to be shot entirely in the People’s Republic of China, this expensive music video has 30 Seconds to Mars transported to ancient China where they play for a child emperor. The video features more than 300 extras and was directed by Bartholomew Cubbins, an alias for actor and Mars frontman Jared Leto. However, the $13 million figure is disputed—is this the world’s most expensive music video?

Most Expensive Turntable in the World

The turntable started out as a device used to play music by rotating a phonograph record on a a circular horizontal platform, but it has evolved into a music instrument itself and some models now are just as much as the costliest instrument. The record player was the most popular device for playing sound from the 1870s through the 1980s, but in the modern work-a-day world of iTunes and Sattelite radio, the record player is often overlooked. DJs and Turntablism brought new life and new expensive turntables to the consumer and keeps the record player adapting.

Vinyl is alive and kicking because the most passionate and wealthy audiophiles know that CD’s or mp3’s sound can‘t touch anything on these—the most expensive turntables.

Continuum Caliburn – up to $112,000

Vinyl isn’t dead, and The Continuum Caliburn turntable proves this by aiming for audio perfection. The price for this expensive turntable starts at $90,000 and goes up to $112,000, depending on finishes and includes some amazing technology. The tonearm alone sells for $12,000. The turntable uses a magnetically levitated magnesium platter suspended in a vacuum to assure there are no vibrations.

Clearaudio Statement – $125,000

This 770-pound hunk of wood and aluminum features a magnetically-driven sub-platter that completely eliminates contact with the main platter and real time speed control. A 176 lb pendulum ensures that the platters are always level and a high speed microprocessor-controlled motor drive unit, similar to that used in the Mars rover, keeps the records turning.

Basis Work of Art – $150,000

This Work of Art uses a “mass-spring-dampener” suspension system to completely isolate the turntable from the listening environment while an AC synchronous instrument motor provides the speed-stability necessary to put the most ardent audiophiles at ease. The Work of Art’s support structure is so rigid that audible resonance is eliminated.

Goldmund Reference II – $300,000

The successor to the 25-year-old Goldmund Reference is a high-precision turntable with level calibration to less than 1/100th of a millimeter and its stylus, pivot and counterweight “perfectly aligned for optimal dynamic balance.” Three Teflon tubes prevent vibration of the wires as they carry signal from the turntable. The turntable also features a digital processor that provides RIAA correction which, I’m guessing, has nothing to do with those people who sue people for downloading MP3 files.
The world’s most expensive turntable is limited to a mere twenty-five units with only five being made per year.

Most Expensive Photograph

The Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen has become the most expensive photograph ever, as it was just recentely sold for more than $2,900,000 during a Sotheby’s sale which began in New York on February 14, 2006. The expensive photograph was taken on Long Island in 1904. There are three known copies of the most expensive photograph in , and the picture is valued for its rarity because it is an early example of color autochrome photography. The other two copies of the photograph are held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and theMuseum of Modern Art.

Pond-Moonlight by Edward Steichen

Richard Prince’s Untitled (Cowboy) was previously the most expensive photograph in the world. The photograph can be seen as destroying the American cowboy myth. The cowboy is a stand-in for the artist himself, endlessly running off into the sunset. This most expensive photograph in the world creates a desire to experience rather than worry about material value of things.

Richard Prince

The most expensive photographs in the world in US dollar figures.

1. Edward Steichen Pond-Moonlight (1904), $2,900,000+, 2006
2. Richard Prince Untitled (Cowboy) (1989), $1,248,000, 2005
3. Gustave Le Gray The Great Wave, Sete, (1857), $838,000, 1999
4. Andreas Gursky Untitled 5 1997, $559,724, Feb. 6, 2002
5. Gustave Le Gray Tree (1855), $513,150, 1999
6. Diane Arbus Identical Twins (Cathleen and Colleen), Roselle, N.J. (1967), $478,400, Apr. 27, 2004
7. Charles Sheeler Ford Works (1927), $447,350, 1999
8. Alfred Stieglitz Georgia O’Keefe: Hands with Thimble, $398,500, May 31, 1998
9. Gustave Le Gray Marine 1855, $368,420, 2000
10. August Sander Handlanger, porteur de briques (Brick carrier) 1927, $328,940, 1999

The market for photography as an art form has come a long way in the last several decades. Pictures that were once sold for less than $100, or even casually thrown away, are now hot properties on the auction market… As always, the results are taken from Artnet’s signature Fine Art Auctions Database src

Most Expensive Doll

Most people play with dolls, figures and replicas as toys when they are young. Some dolls are simple stuffed animals with plastic heads, and others are action figures complete with body armor and weapons. Certain dolls are exquisite works of visual art and engineering.

L’Oiseleur (The Bird Trainer), a 4-ft-tall automaton doll, comes complete with sword, flute, pair of singing birds, and embroidered Renaissance-Era clothing. The expensive doll plays the flute, playing Marche des Rois by Georges Bizet. This amazing doll does not run on electricity or any motors but spring-driven cogs and gears.

The asking price for this most expensive doll is $6,250,000, yes 6.25 million US dollars. The price has to justify the 2,340 gilt or polished-steel parts and over 15,000 hours in a Swiss workshop that it took to create this extraordinary figure.

Most Expensive Comic Book

Many people read comic books growing up as kids, but a certain few retain their passion and become meticulous collectors of expensive comic books. Other people think of comic books as juvenile superhero fantasies, but modern comic books, manga and graphic novels are beginning to change this perception. What is the most expensive comic book in the world?

Any serious comic book collector can tell you that the world’s most expensive comic book is DC’s Action Comics #1 (1938). Written by Jerry Siegel and illustrated by Joe Shuster, this book contained our first 12-page glimpse of the iconic superhero– Superman. One may wonder why this comic would outsell, say, the first appearance of Spider-Man, especially considering the recent success of the Spider-Man movie franchise and the box office flop that marked Superman’s return to Hollywood. The answer lies not in the fact that Action Comics #1 contains the first appearance of Superman, but that it contains the first appearance of the superhero.

All of the stereotypical devices of the superhero genre are combined for the first time in this issue; superpowers, secret identities, pseudo-scientific origins and, yes, even tights. Superman was the amalgamation of Greek myth with Flash Gordan and just a smattering of everyday life. Ultimately, it was the same combination that we still see today, to some extent, in the immensely successful Batman, X-Men and Spider-Man franchises.

According to Scoop, a comics newsletter, a Comics Guaranty (CGC)-certified 4.0 (“very good” condition) copy of Action Comics #1 was sold for $195,000 in May of 2006, out-pricing the 2004 expensive comic books sale of a CGC-certified 9.4 (“near mint” condition) copy of Amazing Fantasy #15, containing Spider-Man’s first appearance, by more than $70,000.

Most Expensive Book Ever Sold

Shakespeare’s “First Folio,” a first edition collection of the Bard’s plays was the most expensive book sold at auction in 2006, bringing $5.1 million USD. The book was published in 1623, seven years after Shakespeare’s death and contains a dozen plays that have never been reprinted as well as many that are considered classics today. The original printing issued 750 copies of the book and perhaps a third of these still exist today, albeit generally incomplete copies. With its original price of twenty shillings per copy, the book has needless to say undergone a remarkable price increase. It was a literary custom and common practice for readers to make revisions, additions and annotations to original books and manuscripts and this piece is no exception, with many notes giving insight into the book’s storied readership (perhaps a literary precursor to open-source software). The book was auctioned by Dr. Williams’ Library, a London library that contains a remarkable collection of first editions and manuscripts. It is said that the auction, carried out by Sotheby’s Auction House, will secure the finances and aging collection of the library for the near future.

Following up the most expensive book of 2006 was the first printed atlas, “Cosmography,” based on the work of second century Greek mathematician, geographer and astronemer Ptolemy. Printed in 1477, only two copies are held by private collectors today. The book fetched an impressive $4 million. It is worthy of note that five of the top ten most expensive books of 2006 were atlases, three of which were based on Ptolemy’s works. Atlases presented a unique challenge for early printers, as each map had to be etched into a printing plate by hand, precisely copying the original sources which were often over a thousand years old.

a page from Codex Leicester

As impressive as the value of those books may be, they pale in comparison to the record for the world’s most expensive book ever sold. Leonardo Da Vinci’s “Codex Leicester,” a notebook filled with original drawings, notes and sketches was sold to Microsoft founder Bill Gates for an incredible $30.8 million dollars in 1994. The most expensive printed book on record is James Audobon’s “Birds of America,” which sold in 2000 for $8.8 million. Audobon is a noted illustrator who pioneered much of early wildlife research. His work vastly increased popular awareness of the breadth of species in our world, and is still very highly regarded today for its accuracy and poignant detail.

Da Vinci’s “Codex” and Audobon’s “Birds” may, however, have a contender in 2008. Tomas Hartmann, the self-proclaimed “greatest philosopher of all time,” plans to sell a single copy of his book, “The Task,” for €153 million ($223 million USD). He only plans to sell a single copy of the thirteen-page book which is the culmination of thirty years of work. Despite his status as an international unknown, Hartmann’s book will be displayed at the Book Expo America 2008 Fair in Los Angeles and the Buch Wien Fair.

Hartmann also plans to sell an edition of 5,000 copies of a book of his philosophical poems, which he will introduce at the Linz international book fair, for €1530 per book ($2,234 in USD). However, if Hartmann wins a literary award, he plans to increase the price to €1.53 million per book.

While any reader, scholarly or not would be proud to own an original edition of Shakespeare’s work, perhaps we will see an even more outlandishly expensive price tag for a historic literary work in the near future. Rare original manuscripts that contain the artists’ and writers’ hand workings often sell for vast sums, and are put to auction fairly regularly. The rare book market is doing quite well and the prices are still going up, so even relative newcomers like Hartmann may author the world’s most expensive book.

Most Expensive Pens in the World

Aurora’s Diamante

What better way is there to show your dedication to the (hand)written word than to own the world’s most expensive pen? Okay, there might be a few better ways to do so. In fact, the most expensive pen’s true purpose is likely to show off just how much money you make as the CEO of some recently bailed-out corporation.

Hey, at least it’s really good at showing off.

Diamante contains over 30 carats of diamonds and its creators, Aurora, aren’t shy about telling you it’s the only pen in the world to have so many. That’s why they make one every year.

The pen is topped with a diamond cabochon—a polished, not faceted, gem—and is further decorated with almost two thousand DeBeers-certified “4 C” gems on a solid platinum barrel. Even the nib is precious, being fashioned from 18kt gold.

The asking price for the most expensive pen in the world is not available to the public, but is suspected to be around US $1.28 million. The purchaser may have the Diamante personalized with their coat of arms, signature or portrait.

Montblanc, a fountain pen and luxury goods manufacturer, and Van Cleef & Arpels, a jewelry house, are the creators of the former most expensive pen, a writing instrument known as the Mystery Masterpiece. The unique work took over a year and a half to create by skilled artisans and if you hurry you can have your choice of three variations, set with 20 carats of sapphires, emeralds, or rubies, and accented by almost 840 diamonds. The three versions of the expensive pens were limited to three releases each and each of the nine pens sold for $730,000.

Montblanc’s Mystery Masterpiece

Most Expensive Painting Ever Sold

Making your art-snob friends jealous can be a full-time job. With the regularly fluctuating market and exorbitant prices that fine art fetches these days, you’ve got to be quick to stay on top of the game. In November of 2006, action-painter Jackson Pollock’s “No.5 1948” took the cake as most expensive painting sold to date. Sold by music mogul David Geffen of Geffen Records, it was claimed to have fetched $140 million. Pollock, who passed in 1956 at the age of 42, is a new addition to the list of prized canvases. While his paintings are highly regarded, this is the first of his works to skyrocket to such an exorbitant price. The painting itself, apparently a mixture of oil and canvas created in his highly successful “drip” style, is a swirling mixture of earth tones and black and white, that to the untrained eye may appear a splattered mess. His paintings have a certain harmony and are developed in such an enigmatic way that they are sure to hold some public interest for years to come.

Pollock’s No.5 1948

Mid-summer 2006, Gustav Klimt’s Portrait of Adele Bloch-Bauer I was previously the most expensive painting sold. Fetching $135 million, the gold inlaid portrait is an excellent example of artwork from the Viennese Secession. This piece is a member of a particularly influential portfolio, as Klimt and his cohorts struggled to turn the art establishment of the time on its ear and still make highly involved, lavish, and beautiful works. The highly decorative painting breaks from traditional portraiture in its avoidance of focus on natural lighting in favor of the nearly psychedelic texture and pattern-making. The painting still exhibits a great deal of skill and handling in the face and figure, while revealing the early stages of the distortions Egon Scheile would embrace in his work in.

Sold to Ronald Lauer of the Neue Galerie in New York, Klimt’s portrait toppled the lead Pablo Picasso’s Boy with a Pipe had held for two years. Selling for $104.1 million at auction, this handsome piece displays a seated figure with a pipe in front of a decorative floral pattern. The painting captures something of realism mixed with a dark ambience. Despite a relatively bright pallet, the face of the seated boy reveals a darker demeanor.

Adjusting for inflation, two paintings sold to Ryoei Saito in 1990 close out the top five spots on a list of most expensive paintings ever sold. Pierre Auguste Renoir’s amazing Bal au moulin de la Galette, Montmartre, depicting a lavish outdoor ball in France, fetched $78 million at auction. Today, the inflation-adjusted value of this painting is approximately 110 million. Van Gogh’s Portrait of Dr. Gachet, purchased for $82.5 million by Saito, is now valued at $116.8 million. Saito passed in 1996, leaving the paintings’ whereabouts currently unknown.

Worthy of note is that many highly prized paintings are held tightly in the grip of permanent museum collections, and while more highly valued, are unlikely to be presented on the auction block. The Mona Lisa by DaVinci, for example held an insurance value of $100 million prior to a world tour in 1960. Today, this value is approximated at over $600 million, and the painting is encased in layer upon layer of bulletproof glass at the Musee de Lourve in Paris.

With the exception of the gold inlay and decorative encrusting on many of Klimt’s paintings, these artworks hold little, if any material value. Made generally of stretched canvas, wood and nails, it is their cultural significance and unquestionable rarity that propels these images to such astronomical prices. Picasso holds several seats on the list of highest priced paintings, because while rare and extremely influential, his paintings are at times still traded on the open market, not yet sequestered strictly to museum status. These values, as in any other commodity see a ridiculous inflation towards the extremes of the market. Seemingly set aside for only the super-rich, fine art has long been an exercise in elitism. An interesting note is a return in recent years to the figurative work of the impressionists and artists like Klimt, simultaneous with a revival of realism in depiction of the figure in current art trends. It is reassuring in many ways to see Klimt as the most highly valued, as he was an innovator for his time that stood for progress not only in his work but in his lifestyle, political and societal viewpoints.

Most Expensive Koran

The Koran, or “The Recitation”, is the central text of the Muslim religion. It may also be written Qur’an, Quran or Al-Quran. In its original Arabic, it is believed to be the word of Allah (the Arabic word for “God”) dictated to Muhammad by the angel Gabriel. The first known Korans were printed from wooden blocks in the 10th century CE. Recently, the most expensive Koran was sold for £1,140,500 (over $2.3 million USD).

This expensive religious text is over 800 years old, having been dated to 1203 CE. Its most remarkable feature, though, is that the central text is written entirely in gold, with marginal notes written in silver. It is the oldest known complete copy of the Koran written in gold.

Sold at auction on behalf of the Hispanic Society of America, the gold Koran was expected, at most, to fetch less than three quarters of its final sale price. In the end, it not only shattered the record for the most expensive Koran, but also for the most expensive Islamic text ever sold.

Most Expensive Concert Tickets

Anyone who purchased tickets to a Madonna show last year probably knows that they paid $300 USD for the most expensive concert tickets in 2007. Madonna doesn’t hold the record for the most expensive concert tickets ever, though. That honor goes to Led Zeppelin, whose tickets were recently auctioned off for £83,000 ($164,929 USD) for a pair.

Later, three more pairs of tickets to see the legendary English rock band responsible for “Stairway to Heaven” were auctioned off with a reserve price of £5,000 ($9,935 USD). All of the tickets were for the Ahmet Ertegün Tribute Concert at the o2 Arena on December 10th, 2007 and the auctions were all for charity—Children in Need and the Action for Brazil’s Children Trust (ABC), respectively.

Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.0 license.)

Ahmet Ertegün, whom the concert honors, was the co-founder and executive of Atlantic Records and chairman of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

ABC was founded by band member Jimmy Page’s wife Jimena Gomez-Paratcha in 1998 and the tickets were donated to the trust by Jimmy Page himself. Bidding on those tickets ended on the 30th of November, but we were unable to track down the exact amount of the winning bids. Regardless, we can be sure that Led Zeppelin’s reunion and the world’s most expensive concert tickets helped raise awareness and funding to help the estimated 7 million children living on the streets of Brazil.

Most Expensive Video Game

Back in 1993, when the revolutionary first person shooter, Doom, was released, a game could be made by eleven people with a budget that was probably around $200,000. Today, the production of a video game can cost upwards of tens of millions of dollars and sometimes takes over 5 years to develop. Releasing an A-list title is a massive business undertaking, employing hundreds or thousands of people. An incredible amount of risk is involved in releasing a title. Big name publishers lean towards releasing sequels and safer titles that appeal to a broader audience.

Sometimes an ambitious game developer will completely overrun its budget and development time. Sometimes this results in an epic title that breaks all the rules set before it. More often than not, it results in poor reviews, poor sales and a disappointing game.

Arguably one of the latter, the most expensive video game, until recently, was a Sega Dreamcast game called Shenmue. Released in 1999, the project cost over $70 million and took over 7 years to complete. It was produced and directed by Yu Suzuki for the Sega-AM2 (Sega Amusement Machine Research and Development Department 2). Shenmue boasted unparalleled freedom and interactivity and even a real time weather system. But this wasn’t enough to impress many reviewers; the most expensive video game received mixed reviews and experienced mediocre sales. Nonetheless, the expensive game inspired a massive fan base that remains active to this day.

Rockstar North, known for their mature titles, has recently ousted Shenmue from its most expensive position and replaced it with their own offering, Grand Theft Auto IV. Taking place in the fictional Liberty City, a close likeness of New York City, GTA IV also allows players an unequaled level of freedom and interactivity. The in-game radio has over 150 songs which, through a deal with Amazon, players can download in real life. The game even includes two hours of television that a player can watch while ignoring pressing responsibilities such as assassinating suspiciously familiar anti-video game lawyers.

While the exact figure isn’t yet public knowledge, Rockstar North’s president has estimated that the world’s most expensive video game cost about $100 million to make. Luckily for us, the game only costs consumers around $60.

Most Expensive Toilets in the World

If someone were to say, “I just bought a Toto,” you might think they’d purchased a little black Terrier and named it after the Wizard of Oz costar. They could, on the other hand, be the proud owner of one of the world’s most expensive toilets.

Toto Neorest 600 – $5,000

What more do you need, when doing your business, than your standard lavatory offers? Toto’s most expensive toilet, the Neorest 600, has a wide range of features to answer that question. For starters, the lid automatically opens whenever you approach the toilet. As soon as you rise from your state of the art porcelain throne, it automatically engages its Power Catalytic Air Purifier function. Six seconds after you’re out of range of the toilet’s sensor zone, it will automatically flush and close both the lid and the seat.

For those functions that aren’t automatic, there’s a wireless remote control. A button-press can open, close or warm the seat, change the water temperature, perform a powerful “Cyclone flush” instead of the automatic light flush or control the Washlet functions you’ll use to tidy yourself up after using the expensive toilet.

Hang Fung Gold Toilet – around $5 million

This 24k gold toilet is a feature of Hang Fung jeweler’s solid gold bathroom in Hong Kong. The company had the toilet made when gold was merely $200 per ounce and planned to melt it down if gold ever reached $1,000 per ounce. When the price of gold neared the $1,000 mark in early 2008, however, the company stated that they would not have it melted down. One ton of the golden bathroom accessories surrounding the toilet would be melted down instead.

Moon River Art Park Toilet – $600 million

A toilet hidden in a cave in Shanghai’s Moon River Art Park cost 5 million yuan to build. The cave is manmade and decked out like a grotto. While entry to the park costs 30 yuan, using the toilet is free. It may be difficult to get in, though. Toilet cleaners reported people waiting in line up to two hours when the toilet was first opened in 2005.

International Space Station Toilet – $19 million

What may just be the most expensive toilet ever built isn’t the world’s most expensive toilet. That’s because it’s being launched into space! The toilet system NASA had built by Russia was delivered to the international Space Station in November 2008. The system, the same as the one in place on the Russian side of the station, recycles urine into water. It will replace a toilet system that has broken twice in 2008.

Most Expensive Earrings

One of the world’s oldest forms of body modification, the practice of wearing earrings has almost certainly been around longer than recorded history. The world’s most expensive earrings, on the other hand, were created much more recently.

Harry Winston’s Extraordinary Diamond Drop Earrings weren’t made by Harry Winston—he died nearly thirty years before they were made—but they remain an important part of his legacy. Created by the House of Winston in 2006, this pair of pear-shaped, diamond earrings weighs in at 60.1 carats altogether.

Winston himself was a jeweler famous for donating the Hope diamond, which he’d had in his possession for a decade, to the Smithsonian Institute in 1958. He got his start when he purchased Arabella Huntington’s jewelry collection, one of the largest of the time, and reworked them on his own to reflect contemporary fashion. His name has since been attached to the millions of dollars jewelry lent out to celebrities on Oscar night.

The most expensive earrings in the world are worth $8.5 million. They can be purchased from the House of Winston on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hill, Californi

Most Expensive Fabergé Egg

Fabergé eggs are extravagantly decorated, jeweled eggs created by master jeweler Peter Carl Fabergé and his assistants. The Russian jeweler made at least seventy-five eggs between 1885 and 1917, fifty-two of which are “Imperial Easter eggs” presented to Russian Czars Alexander III and Nicholas II as Easter gifts for their respective wives. Each of the eggs contained a surprise, the original being a golden yolk containing a golden hen wearing a crown from which a ruby hangs. Recently, the most expensive Fabergé egg was sold by Christie’s auction house for £8.9 million ($17.4 million USD) in December of 2007.

The egg was created for members of the French Rothschild banking family in 1902. It was commissioned by socialite and art collector Béatrice Ephrussi de Rothschild to be presented to her younger brother’s fiancée, Germaine Halphen. The Rothschild egg is thought to have remained undocumented due to the destruction of the Fabergé archives following the October Revolution.

The egg, which is also a decorative clock with a diamond-set cockerel that pops up on the hour, is not just the most expensive Fabergé egg; it’s also the most expensive timepiece and the most expensive Russian object. It was purchased by the owner of Russia’s first private museum, Alexander Ivanov.

Most Expensive Magic: The Gathering Card

Ever wonder what someone does with a mathematics degree other than teaching math? Richard Garfield, while studying combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, decided to apply his arithmetic skills to game design. He earned his PhD in 1993, the same year role-playing game publisher Wizards of the Coast first published a card game of his design. That game would go on to become their flagship game, winning awards from the likes of Mensa and the Origin Games Fair, and would eventually lead to Wizards claiming a patent on collectible card games. It was called Magic: The Gathering and to this day it’s enjoyed by over six million players all over the world.

The game, in which players take on the roles of dueling wizards, has spawned an organized tournament circuit, Duelists’ Convocation international or DCI, and a field of professional players. Perhaps the most remarkable aspect of the game, however, is the secondary market formed around valuable cards. Certain cards become highly valued through rarity or utility and may be purchased for hundreds or even thousands of dollars.

The world’s most expensive Magic: The Gathering card is an Alpha Black Lotus. The Black Lotus, a particularly powerful card in game play, was released in two limited sets—Alpha and Beta. The Alpha set, limited to only 1.1 million cards as opposed to Beta’s 4 million cards, consists of some of the rarest MtG cards out there. This particular Alpha Black Lotus was given the highest possible PSA (Professional Sports Authenticator) grading, GEM MINT 10, and features artist Christopher Rush’s signature. It’s currently owned by renowned MtG authority Daniel Chang.

An exact figure on the price of the most valuable Magic: The Gathering card is unavailable, but collectors have paid $15,000 for lesser Black Lotus cards.

Most Expensive Belt Buckle

If you prefer a tastefully understated buckle or an enormous ram’s head, these expensive belt buckles are probably not for you. These buckles are about showing off your wealth and class. These are the most expensive belt buckles in the world.

Kate Miles
$18,000 (incl. belt)

These belts by Kate Miles are adorned with some fairly expensive belt buckles. The belts, available in three different styles, include buckles made of seven to eight ounces of platinum. The price tag, however, also includes the rest of the rather nice leather belt.

Roland Iten mechanical belt buckles
$25,000+

Swiss designer Roland Iten won’t touch a timepiece of any sort, but he still manages to create high precision, mechanical fashion accessories for men of discriminating taste. His solid gold mechanical belt buckle is as much a work of art as it is a work of engineering. It takes nine to eighteen months to produce and has a price to match.

The expensive belt buckle takes so long to produce because it uses the same manufacturing process as Geneva’s renowned watch-making industry. Its mechanical features make the buckle especially attractive to those who like to loosen their belt after a big meal.

His most sophisticated piece is currently the Calibre R82 Double Ardillon “Cobra.”

Louis Vuitton Blason belt buckle
$44,000

“Blason” is a French term for the description of a coat of arms, so the shield-like shape of this designer belt buckle is hardly surprising. It also features some 523 precious stones, including sapphires, rubies and diamonds. Of course, it’s likely the LV monogram that really makes this the most expensive belt buckle in the world.

Most Expensive Bass Guitar

A financially endowed bass player might look at any one of Jens Ritter’s bass guitars, which start at $6,000, and be content. After all, the German luthier’s expensive basses are made with some of the same techniques used to make Stradivarius violins. One customer, however, wasn’t satisfied with one of Ritter’s “normal” guitars and we’re lucky for it. After all, if it weren’t for this customer, we wouldn’t be able to tell you about the world’s most expensive bass guitar.

The Ritter Royal Flora Aurum, as it’s called, has a body carved from a rare, solid piece of maple while the nut is carved from 10,000-year-old mammoth ivory. The fingerboard is decorated with a floral inlay pattern made of 24-karat gold. There’s even a black diamond set in platinum decorating each leaf. Even the bridge, tuner buttons and knobs are cast in gold. The knobs on this luxurious bass hold an additional embellishment—they’re both topped with brilliant-cut diamonds (3.3 carats total).

The Flora Aurum is a work in progress and is on hold for one lucky buyer.

The most expensive bass guitar in the world is valued at $100,000.

Most Expensive Table

Rococo is a style of art and interior design developed by the French in the 18th century. Rococo-style rooms favored form over function, featuring ornate furniture, elegant tapestries, ornamental mirrors and other lavish trappings. Sold at a Christie’s auction in Philadelphia, the most expensive table in the world is just one example of rococo furniture.

The Tufft pier table, named after its creator, Thomas Tufft, was hand-carved in the late 1700s for general store owner Richard Edwards of Lumberton, New Jersey. The antique table features pierced fretwork and long legs ending in narrow ankles and detailed ball-and-claw feet. It was sold by Edwards’ descendent, a Philadelphia architect by the name of Samuel Harrison Gardiner.

The most impressive thing about the world’s most expensive table isn’t its auction sale of $4.6 million, which overshot presale estimate by over $3 million, but the fact that it has retained its position for nearly two decades. The Tufft pier table was sold on January 20th, 1990. Now that’s an enduring work of art!

Replicas of the Tufft table, like the one pictured above, can be purchased fromRichard Rothstein Classic Interiors.

Most Expensive Salons

We’ve already told you about the world’s most expensive haircut, a one-off service provided by stylist Stuart Phillips to retired millionaire Beverley Lateo, but Mr. Pillips’ usual fee of £150 (around $300) is far short of that commanded by some. The wealthy, after all, are willing to pay a handsome fee for a stylist who can turn the haircut in their mind’s eye into a reality. Let’s take a look, then, at the world’s most expensive salons.

Sally Hershberger

Sally Hershberger, known for her signature shaggy look, has salons in both downtown and uptown New York and a recently opened salon in Los Angeles. In the years she’s been styling, Hershberger has developed quite a list of celebrity clientele, including Sandra Bullock, Michelle Pfeiffer, Tom Cruise and even Hillary Clinton. She currently charges $600 for a haircut, but be sure to book your haircut well in advance. The waiting list is long and regulars get preference.

Frédéric Fekkai

Frédéric Fekkai, born in Southern France, has been cutting hair professionally for over twenty years. He now has eight salons, including locations in Soho, Greenwich and even Dallas. He’s been featured in a variety of magazines, from Menswear to Vogue, and his staff tests his line of hair care products in the same salons frequented by A-list celebrities like Live Tyler and Kim Basinger. A haircut at a Frédéric Fekkai Salon also costs $600.

Orlando Pita
(via bcause.org)

The priciest salon, though, is a private salon run by Orlando Pita. Unlike some other salons, Orlo Salon in New York City focuses solely on the haircut. Orlando has spent 25 years in the business and has styled for the likes of Madonna, Jennifer Connelly and Kirsten Dunst. Those who can manage to get an appointment at Orlo must be prepared to dish out $800 at the most expensive salon in the world.