Here is a list of either odd or stunningly unique million-dollar sales. Oddities with great items are purposefully mixed for your reading pleasure on this slow Monday evening (or Tuesday morning depending on where you are):

10-year old kid pays $2 million for a license plate

Record setting prices were paid for license plates with special plate numbers in Abu Dahbi this summer including for one by a 10-year old. Watch the video for the astronomical numbers:

Source: http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/758630-abu-dhabi

The Sun is the center of the universe, not the Earth - says the book by Copernicus

The first edition of the famous Copernicus book - “De revolutionibus orbium coelestium” (On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres) written in 1543 - fetched $2.2 million at Christie’s auction, almost twice as much as the pre-auction estimate.

Source: http://www.wcbs880.com/pages/2434427.php or see the Christie’s auction page

 

$2 million worth of heroin addiction charged on company credit card

According to the Herald Sun of Australia, a woman who was the executive assistant to the managing director of General Mills Australia spent $2.2 million on company credit cards to finance his husband’s heroin addiction. Before you start wondering how a drug dealer can accept credit cards - according to the article again - the card was used for regular shopping expenses, while her regular salary covered the cost of the drug.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,24115780-2,00.html

Crystal jug mistakenly valued at £100 sells for £3.2 million

The 1,000-year-old pitcher, also known as a ewer, was sold at Christie’s for £3,177,250. Mistakenly, the jug was valued only £100 earlier and the initial auction ended with a £220,000 wining bid. The low hammer price was then canceled and finally, during a revised,proper auction the jug fetched over £3 million.

The ewer was the first (out of the 7 made) ever offered at an open auction. The Fatimid rulers of Cairo, Egypt commissioned the jug around the late 10th century or early 11th century AD. 

Source: Telegraph.co.uk

This might very well be the most expensive organized vacation deal ever. The 28 day travel package costs $1,000,000 which makes it a $35,714 per day vacation. 

The vacation package includes:

First class return trip from any international destination serviced by Etihad Airlines to Abu Dhabi

Seven night stay in a 680 sqm Palace Suite at Emirates Palace on an all-inclusive basis.

Chauffeur driven Maybach at your disposal daily during your stay in Abu Dhabi

Daily spa treatment in the Anantara Spa

Day trip in private jet to Iran to create your own Persian carpet from the most exclusive and well-renowned hand-maker

Day trip in private jet to the Dead Sea Jordan to experience the famous sea and an afternoon Anantara spa treatment in the Kempinski Hotel Ishtar

Day trip to Bahrain in private jet for a pearl deep sea experience. Your pearl will then be hand designed with jewellery settings

Royal Golf experience at Abu Dhabi Golf Club

Make your own perfume with experts from YAS Perfume

Deep sea fishing trip

Gifts including champagne sunset and desert island tour.

Gifts including the rarest pearls in the world from Robert Wang and a selection from Holland & Holland Sporting Guns

More info on the Emirates Palace Hotel website and also in the Wall Street Journal’s Wealth Report.

Christie’s will be holding an Asian Art Week event in New York from September 15 through 18.

The following collections will go on the block:

• Masterpieces of Himalayan Bronzes
• Masterpieces from the Zimmerman Family Collection
• Indian and Southeast Asian Art
• Important Chinese Snuff Bottles from the J&J Collection - Part 5
• Masterworks of Ancient and Imperial China
• Fine Chinese Ceramics and Works of Art
• Japanese and Korean Art

Many items are expected to sell in the million dollar price range and we will be covering the event as it unfolds during the week.

The Patek Philippe watch below was sold for “only” half a million dollars, so it’s a little bit short of our usual selection criteria, but nevertheless, this is one of the most expensive Patek Philippe I’ve ever seen and in its category, this sale event certainly worth mentioning.

It is a platinum automatic perpetual calendar wristwatch with retrograde date and phases of the moon. The Patek Philippe No.1908044 Ref.5013P was launched in 1992 and is one of the most complex wristwatches ever made by Patek Philippe with a total of 515 parts.

The watch was sold for 241,250 GBP ($475,817)

Other recent, interesting, high-end sales in their respective category at Sotheby’s auction include:

Emerald and diamond braclet by Tiffany & Co was sold for 145,250 GBP (~$287,000)

1990 Chateau Petrus red Bordeaux wine from Pomerol, France was sold for 23,000 GBP (~$45,000)

The drumskin used on the front cover of the Beatles’ album “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” was sold for £541,250 ($1,067,346) at Christie’s auction

Every now and again there is an environmentalist group picketing the preservation of the Amazon Rainforest. For those unfamiliar with the Amazon Rainforest, it is a moist broadleaf forest located in the Amazon Basin of South America. The area, also known Amazonia, the Amazon Jungle or the Amazon Basin, encompasses seven million square kilometers (1.7 billion acres), though the forest itself occupies some 5.5 million square kilometers (1.4 billion acres), located within nine nations: Brazil (with 60 percent of the rainforest), Peru (with 13 percent of the rainforest, second after Brazil),Colombia,Venezuela,Ecuador, Boliva, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana. States or departments in four nations bear the name Amazonas after it. The Amazon represents over half of the planet’s remaining rainforests and comprises the largest and most species-rich tract of tropical rainforests in the world.

Get your contributions ready, and check out the WWF adoption program page

WASHINGTON D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) announced earlier this year that a manufacturer of athletic shoes and apparel has agreed to pay the government a $1,000,000 civil penalty. This penalty, which has been provisionally accepted, is the largest for a Federal Hazardous Substances Act (FHSA) violation and follows a recall announced by CPSC and Reebok of 300,000 bracelets.

The penalty settles allegations that Reebok International Ltd., of Canton, Mass., imported and distributed charm bracelets that contained toxic levels of lead. The charm bracelets were provided as free gifts with the purchase of various styles of children’s footwear. In March 2006, a 4-year-old boy from Minneapolis who swallowed the bracelet’s heart-shaped pendant died.

The FHSA bans toxic levels of accessible lead in toys and other children’s products. CPSC’s enforcement policy urges manufacturers of children’s metal jewelry to keep lead content below 0.06% by weight.

“This civil penalty sends a clear message that the CPSC will not allow companies to put children’s safety at risk,” said CPSC Acting Chairman Nancy Nord. “Preventing dangerous metal jewelry from reaching the hands of children is a priority for our agency.

In agreeing to settle the matter, Reebok denies that it violated federal law.

More about this settlement and picture of the bracelet

VistaPrint makes custom business cards and postcards easy, CafePress puts your message on your T-shirt, Blurb helps you publish and sell your own book and now Paragon Lake enables consumers and designers to create custom jewelry using online tools and lots of good old creativity. With their recent funding of $5.8M from Highland Capital Partners and Canaan Venture Partners, Paragon Lake aims to help independent jewelers deliver customized fine jewelry.

Paragon Lake provides online design tools which makes the custom jewelry design process much easier for jewelers, consumers and designers. There is an opportunity here for the low-end and high-end jewelry market alike.

We are eagerly waiting for the first million dollar custom jewelry to come out of this business model and technology.

In our previous post, we speculated whether the Warren Buffett power lunch would go over a million dollars this year. Well, the result is in and it is way over a $1 million. The winning bid is $2,110,100 , which is almost 4 times of what was paid last year for the same auction ($650,000) According to Bloomberg, Zhao Danyang, the hedge-fund manager of Pureheart China Growth Investment Fund (Shenzhen, China) had the winning bid.

100% of proceeds from the auction benefits the Glide Foundation, one of the most effective institutions working to alleviate human suffering and poverty in the San Francisco Bay Area. Mr. Buffett has described Glide as “maybe the most effective organization I’ve seen for people down on their luck.” - source: eBay auction page.

The dinner will take place at Smith & Wollensky in New York City. According to their website: “Smith & Wollensky is one of the most trafficked restaurants in New York and among the most celebrated steakhouses in the world. Specializing in fresh seafood and lobster and assorted steaks and chops, Smith & Wollensky is well recognized for its healthy portions, seasoned service staff and pop Americana ambience. The surnames, Smith and Wollensky, were chosen from the local telephone directory by the restaurant’s founder Alan Stillman, of T.G.I. Friday’s fame. Wollensky’s Grill, a smaller but spirited bar room installed in the side of the famed midtown restaurant, is open until 2 a.m. Catering to night owls, Wollensky Grill offers a late night bill of fare featuring lighter supper versions of items from the grander Smith & Wollensky steakhouse menu and plenty of high-end red wines by the glass to choose from.” See more reviews about the steakhouse on Yelp

Will this auction reach $1,000,000 this year? Last year the winning bid was $650,000.

Currently it is pretty low, but I guess bidders wait till the end of the auction to jump in.

Track the eBay auction below:

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