Here are some of the weirdest things that are worth a fortune!
11 - Gutenberg bible The bible is the best selling book of all
time, and the Gutenberg Bible is THE most valuable bible there is.
How much is a Gutenberg Bible worth?
A perfect copy hasn't changed hands in years, but in 2007, ONE single page sold for $74,000
dollars!
In 1978, Christie's auctioned off a perfect two-volume Gutenberg Bible for $2.2 million
dollars.
In 1987, Christie’s sold an incomplete version to a Japanese company for $4.9 million dollars!
Who knows how much a complete one would go for today!
Gutenberg Bibles are rare and valuable for a number of reasons.
In addition to their scarcity and status as the first of their kind, they are books with
exceptional quality.
Johannes Gutenberg used finely crafted paper and calfskin, as well as a special ink of
his own invention that’s remained vivid for centuries.
Most of the Gutenberg Bibles were sold in loose pages that the buyer would then have
bound in whatever style they wanted.
That gave each Gutenberg Bible its own uniqueness.
It’s believed that 180 copies of the Gutenberg Bible were produced.
Today, only 48 copies are known to exist, some of them only partial, and almost all
of them in the hands of museums, universities and libraries!
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10 - Salvator Mundi This painting is called “Salvator Mundi”
and it’s a long-lost Leonardo da Vinci painting of Jesus Christ.
It was sold at Christie’s in New York in 2017 for a little over $450 million dollars
to a Saudi Arabian Prince!
That shattered the record for any work of art bought at an auction!
Why is it so expensive?
This painting was commissioned by King Louis the Twelfth of France more than 500 years
ago.
It used to be owned by Alexander Parish.
He bought it for only $10,000 dollars at an estate sale in 2005! 10 thousand dollars into
almost half a billion!
Only 24 widely accepted Da Vinci paintings are left in the world, so the discovery of
a Da Vinci painting was a huge deal.
This one is basically one of the holy grails, and that’s why it sold for so much at auction.
It’s one of the last paintings by Da Vinci.
Most major scholars of Da Vinci’s work accepted the painting as an original at the time of
the auction.
But to this day, there’s still debate on whether or not the painting is real!
Could Saudi Arabian prince Badr bin Abdullah have paid 450 million dollars for a fake?!
9 - Little Patch of Red A Chinese postal stamp dating from the Cultural
Revolution was auctioned off for 13.8 million yuan, roughly $2 million bucks in 2018, making
it one of the most expensive stamps in the world!
There are only nine of these stamps in existence, and this one is the most expensive stamp to
have ever been sold in China.
Its nickname is “Little Patch of Red”.
Chinese antiques collectors LOVE Vintage Communist Party propaganda items.
The Chinese government tightly controls EVERYTHING surrounding the events of the Cultural Revolution.
The Communist Party built a personality cult around Mao Zedong, so original items of memorabilia
with him on it are rare.
And that’s why this stamp sold for so much!
8 - Elvis Omega Watch This Omega watch was given to Elvis by RCA
back in 1961.
Why?
It was to commemorate Elvis selling a milestone 75 MILLION records!
An engraving on the back of the watch reads, “To Elvis 75 Million Records RCA Victor
12-25-60.”
Christmas day 1960 was the day that Elvis got to 75 million records and not the day
he was given the watch.
Elvis loved watches and had hundreds of them.
And he would trade watches with a lot of different people.
And that’s the story behind this particular watch.
The story goes like this.
Elvis was sitting in a restaurant when he was approached by a man who said, “nice
watch.”
Elvis glanced at the man’s watch, a diamond-set Hamilton, and replied, “I like your watch
too.
Do you want to trade?”
That man’s nephew ended up with the watch and was able to auction it for a cool 1.8
million dollars!
7 - The Phantom Only 517 Rolls-Royce Phantom Vs, and this
one was owned by John Lennon.
And because this one was owned by John Lennon AND painted in crazy colors, this particular
Rolls Royce is most likely priceless!
Lennon didn’t know how to drive at the time he bought it, but that didn’t matter because
he got a driver to drive him around.
Lennon made his own crazy changes to the car.
For example, the backseat could change into a double bed.
A “floating” record player was installed that prevented the needle from jumping around
while the car was moving.
Speakers were mounted in the front wheel wells so that anyone inside the car could talk to
people outside!
And we can’t forget the custom paint job!
Is there another luxury car that says “I’m from the 60’s” more than this Rolls Royce?
Lennon donated his Phantom to Cooper-Hewitt Museum at the Smithsonian Institute.
The museum then sold the car in 1985 for 2.3 million dollars to Billionaire Canadian businessman
Jim Pattison!
6 - One Cent Magenta This one cent stamp is worth nine and a half
million dollars!
It was issued for a penny in 1856 in British Guiana, a colonial outpost in South America.
And this is the Mona Lisa of stamps.
But why?
In 1855, when Britain established its colony on British Guiana, it didn’t send enough
stamps.
So the island decided to issue their own temporary stamps.
1 cent stamps were for newspapers and 4 cent stamps were for letters.
When more official stamps finally arrived from Britain, the stamps were removed from
circulation.
People kept the 4 cent stamps because they were useful for letters, but no one kept the
1 cent stamps since they were used for newspapers.
And it seemed like these stamps were all lost throughout time.
Until a 12 year old boy named Vernon Vaughan found a used one in his Uncle’s papers.
He eventually sold it to a stamp collector for roughly 10 dollars in today’s money!
Too bad little Vernon didn’t know it was the last one back then.
To this day, it’s still the last one known existing today!
The stamp changed hands between many rich famous stamp collectors.
And, every time it’s been sold, it was sold for a profit!
5 - Acts of Congress George Washington’s book “Acts of Congress”
contained his personal copy of the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
And that’s the biggest reason why it sold for a whopping $9.8 million in 2012!
That set a record for any American book or historic document.
It had Washington’s signature marking it as his own, something that drove up the price
of the book!
It was in near-pristine condition after over 220 years.
It was actually specially printed for Washington in 1789, his first year in office as president.
The book was sold from Washington’s personal library at Mt. Vernon in Virginia in 1876.
It was then bought at auction by collector Richard Dietrich in the 1960s.
The successful bidder was the Mount Vernon Ladies’ Association.
It’s a privately funded nonprofit that owns and operates Mount Vernon, which used to be
Washington’s Virginia estate.
The book was bought back from the Dietrich family to specifically be returned to Washington’s
Mount Vernon Library!
4 - The Walking Man Alberto Giacometti's 1960 sculpture of a spindly
man called "Walking Man I" sold for a whopping $104.3 million dollars at auction in 2010!
It was the most money ever paid for a work of art at auction back then!
Who has this type of cash?
Watch our secret billionaires video to find out who does!
This 6-foot-tall bronze statue is basically a wiry man in mid-stride.
Giacometti made the statue in 1961 as part of a commission to plant several of his bronze
figures in New York City.
However, he famously struggled with the project and eventually quit.
But he did create several of the planned figures.
Walking Man I was one of them, and it’s considered Giacometti's most iconic piece
he ever created.
3 - Casablanca piano One of the most famous pianos in the world
was sold in 2014 to the tune of 3.4 MILLION dollars!
Which piano was it?
The piano in the movie Casablanca, used in the scene where Ingrid Bergman famously asked
Sam to play the song, “As Time Goes By”.
The actor playing Sam, Dooley Wilson, actually didn’t play the piano at all.
The music was dubbed over as he just pretended to play it.
The piano is easy to recognize as the iconic prop from Casablanca starring Ingrid Bergman
and Humphrey Bogart.
So why was this piano so expensive?
The Casablanca piano is such a significant piece because the character Humphrey Bogart
played hid his travel documents in the piano.
So it showed up in the film many times, becoming an iconic piece of movie history!
2 - Ruyao Ceramic Does this bowl look like it’s worth 38 million
dollars to you?
This 900-year-old bowl made during the Song dynasty set a new auction record for Chinese
porcelain.
An anonymous buyer placed the winning bid of 294 million Hong Kong dollars back in 2017.
So why did it go sell for that much?
This bluish-green bowl is a "brush washer", which are shallow porcelain bowls that were
used in ancient China to clean calligraphy and paint brushes.
The style of the bowl is known as Ru guan yao, or Ru "ice crackle".
Since 1940, only six Ru ceramics have appeared at auction.
The Ru ceramic that sold before this one was also another "ice crackle" bowl.
That one was sold at Sotheby's for $27 million dollars in 2012!
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1 - The Guennol Lioness The Guennol Lioness is a 3 and a quarter inch
tall white limestone figure created over 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia.
And it was sold for 57 million dollars in 2007!
The sculpture is considered one of the last known masterworks from its era.
But we’re still talking FIFTY SEVEN MILLION for an ancient limestone lion that fits in
the palm of your hand!
The figurine was found at a site near Baghdad and had been on loan by a private family to
the Brooklyn Museum for nearly 60 years.
The family decided to sell the tiny work of art for financial planning reasons.
Here’s what’s next!