The most expensive bicycle sold at auction is £318,000 ($500,000) and was sold at Sothebys, New York, on 1 November 2009. The one-off creation named ‘Butterfly bike’ by British artist Damien Hirst was ridden by Lance Armstrong (USA) during the final stage of Tour de France 2009. The sale was in aid of the Mr. Armstrong’s LiveStrong cancer charity. Mr. Hirst used real butterfly wings, lacquered onto the frame of a Trek Madone bike.
The most expensive bathtub is £530,000 ($845,000) which was cut from a 10 ton (20,000 lbs) Amazonian crystal stone and is on sale at Harrods store in London, UK. It is 2 m (6 ft 6 in) long and weighs more than 2 ton (4,000 lbs) when full. The bath was designed by Luca Bojola for Italian interiors company Baldi. The bath is sculpted with diamond cuts and left partially rough to expose the natural beauty of the crystal.
A baseball was sold at Guernsey’s auction house, New York City, USA for $3,054,000 (£1,874,655) including commission, to Todd McFarlane on 12 January 1999. The ball was the one that was hit by Mark McGwire of the St Louis Cardinals for his 70th and final home run in his record-setting season in 1998.
The most valuable chocolate bar in the world is a 100-year old Cadbury’s chocolate bar which went on Captain Robert Scott’s first Discovery expedition (1901-1904) to the Antarctic. The bar, which is 10 cm (4 in) long, wrapped and uneaten in a cigarette tin, was bought for £470 ($687) by an anonymous buyer at Christie’s, London, UK on 25 September 2001. The bar was made at Cadbury’s Bournville factory in Birmingham and was part of 1,587 kg (3,500 lb) of cocoa and chocolate Scott took
Continue reading →
The most expensive of all caviar, and indeed the world’s most expensive food is ‘Almas’, from the Iranian Beluga fish – 1 kg (2 lb 3 oz) of this ‘black gold’ is regularly sold for £20,000 (then $34,500). Almas is produced from the eggs of a rare albino sturgeon between 60-100 years old, which swims in the southern Caspian Sea where there is apparently less pollution. Caviar is traditionally eaten directly from the skin between the index finger and the thumb. The eggs are rolled
Continue reading →
A Louis XV Savonnerie carpet measuring 5.4 x 5.8 m (18 x 19 ft) which was probably made for Louis XV’s Château de la Mouette c. 1740-50, fetched $4,406,000 (£2,993,512) at Christie’s, New York, USA in November 2000.
The highest amount of money paid for a London to Brighton Run veteran (i.e. pre-1905) car is ?3,521,500 ($7,242,916) for the world’s oldest surviving Rolls-Royce, numbered 20154. The two-seater, 10-hp car, manufactured by the Rolls-Royce factory in Manchester, UK in 1904, was sold by Bonhams to an anonymous British collector in London, UK, on 3 December 2007. The car also holds the record for a Rolls-Royce at auction and car of British manufacture at auction. Brass Era Car – beginning with the first horseless carriages,
Continue reading →
A brioche was sold at auction at the Reve d’un Soir event in aid of Kids, London, UK for £4000 ($7,838) to Lady Aliai Forte (UK) on 1 February 2007.
The five-lane San Francisco–Oakland Bay toll bridge opened in 1963, but was left crippled by the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989. In 2002, restoration and replacement work began on the bridge at an estimated cost of $6.3 billion (£3.8 billion).
The most expensive dessert is The Frrrozen Haute Chocolate ice cream sundae costing $25,000 (£12,000), which was added to the menu of the Serendipity 3 restaurant, New York, USA on 7 November 2007. The dessert uses a fine blend of 28 cocoas, including 14 of the world’s most expensive. The sundae was made in partnership with luxury jeweller Euphoria New York. The dessert is decorated with 5 g (0.17 oz) of edible 23-karat gold and is served in a goblet lined with edible gold. The
Continue reading →