World’s Most Expensive Harmonica

While reed instruments had been popular in Asia for centuries, the first harmonica wasn’t produced until 1821. Hohner Musikinstrumente, once the world’s most prominent manufacturer of harmonicas, was founded less than forty years later. In the 1930s, the company awarded Pope Pius XI with the most expensive harmonica in the world.

Pius XI was a scholarly pope who abhorred racism and often spoke out against Communism and Nazism. His greatest achievement, however, was the signing of the Lateral Treaty with Italy in 1929, which established Vatican City as an independent state.

The harmonica given to Pius XI by Hohner had brass reeds and a solid gold casing encrusted with jewels and ivory. The material cost of the harmonica is unknown but, as a papal artifact, one could easily call it “priceless.”