The White Truffle (Tuber magnum pico) is the world’s most expensive edible fungus, fetching up to U$3,000 per kilo. They can only be found in the Italian regions of Piedmont, Emilia-Romagna, Tuscany and Marches, and the Istrian peninsula of Croatia, and because they grow about a foot underground, they can only be located with the help of trained dogs.
An 1847 letter to wine merchants in Bordeaux, franked with the 1d and 2d first issues of Mauritius was bought by an anonymous buyer in less than a minute for CHF6,123,750 ($4,075,165 / £2,811,639) at a sale conducted by Geneva-based auctioneer David Feldman (Ireland) at the Hotel International in Zürich, Switzerland on 3 November 1993.
The largest amount of money for which a house has been advertised is $165 million (£81.7 million) when the former home of William Randolph Hearst (USA) was listed on the property market by Westside Estate Agency in July 2007. The 6,967-m² (75,000-ft²), H-shaped Mediterranean villa is set in 2.6 ha (6.5 acres) of land in Beverly Hills, California, USA and boasts 29 bedrooms, 40 bathrooms, three swimming pools and even its own nightclub. It also featured in the film, The Godfather (USA, 1972). The house
Continue reading →
The most money paid for a draught horse is $112,500 (£69,440) when a 2-year-old Belgian stallion, McIlrath’s Captain Jim, was sold at the Mid-America Draft Horse Sale, Gifford, Illinois, USA on 20 February 2003. The previous owners, William Helmuth & Allen F. Detweiler (both USA) sold the horse at the public auction to James A. Raber and Orla W. Yoder (both USA).
The most expensive home flight simulator cockpit belongs to Australian trucking tycoon Matthew Sheil who has spent the last eight years constructing a flight simulator cockpit based round the 747-400. The project to date has cost $300,000 dollars (£132,000) and features 12 computers controlling motion, audio and the flight simulator game itself. The motion is provided by a hydraulic system fitted to the cockpit, and visuals are provided by a projector for the front view and two LCD monitors for the side views.
The most expensive hair cut cost £8,000 ($16,420) and was made by Stuart Phillips at the Stuart Phillips Salon in Covent Garden, London, UK, on 29 October 2007. The person who made the appointment was Beverley Lateo of Pisa, Italy, who could not find a hairdresser that she like in all of Italy, so looked elsewhere in Europe and in April 2007 found Stuart Phillips – a name she recognised from numerous British magazine, as the official hairstylist to The British Academy Television Awards (since
Continue reading →
The most valuable hair clippings sold at auction are a mass of dark black cuttings from the head of Elvis Presley which were sold by his personal barber, Homer ‘Gill’ Gilleland, for $115,120 (£72,791, buyer’s premium included) to an anonymous buyer during an online auction held by MastroNet Inc, Oak Brook, Illinois, USA on 15 November 2002. The mass of hair is approximately 3 in (8 cm) in diameter and is accompanied by letters of authenticity from Tom Morgan Jr. (detailing their history), John W.
Continue reading →
The most valuable Christmas card in the world was sold at auction in Devizes, Wiltshire, UK on 24 November 2001 for £20,000 ($28,158) and bought by an anonymous bidder. Measuring 13 x 8 cm (5 x 3 in) it was sent by Sir Henry Cole, a Bath-born businessman to his grandmother in 1843 and is hand-coloured by the London illustrator John Calcott Horsley. The Christmas card is also considered the world’s first Christmas card. A total 1,000 were lithographed and sold at a shilling each.
Continue reading →
The most expensive piece of work by a living artist sold at auction is Benefits Supervisor Sleeping by Lucian Freud (USA), which fetched $33.64 million (£17.27 million) at Christie’s in Manhattan, USA on 13 May 2008. The buyer was Roman Abramovich, the Russian Billionaire and owner of Chelsea F.C. Sources: http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/visual_arts/article3928558.ece http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7408211.stm
A 76-cm (30-in) long ginrin showa koi, which won supreme championship in nationwide Japanese koi shows in 1976, 1977, 1979 and 1980, was sold two years later for 17 million yen (then £50,000). In March 1986 this ornamental carp was acquired by Derry Evans (UK), owner of the Kent Koi Centre near Sevenoaks, Kent, UK for an undisclosed sum, but the 15-year-old fish died five months later. It has since been stuffed and mounted to preserve its beauty.