For over half a decade, Business.com reigned as the world’s most expensive domain name after its 1999 sale for $7.5 million. That was shortly after the site was founded by former Walt Disney Internet Group chairman Jake Winebaum and Earthlink founder Sky Dayton. The domain retained its record until 2006, when Match.com founder Gary Kremen decided to get out of the adult entertainment industry and sold Sex.com for $14 million (or $12 million, depending on who you ask) in 2006.

While the current market for internet domains is nowhere as solid as it was during the dot-com peak, the market remains strong and is experiencing solid growth. Each year tens of millions of dollars are exchanged during the resale of domains.

The record for most expensive domain name ever sold changed hands again in late 2009, when internet marketing firm QuinStreet purchased Insure.com for $16 million. Other top dollar domain sales of 2009 include Toys.com, purchased by Toys ‘R Us for $5.1 million in March of 2009, and Candy.com, sold for $3 million in June of 2009.

Enough with the preamble, though—check out the world’s top ten most expensive domain names:

1. Insure.com, sold to QuinStreet for $16 million in 2009.
2. Sex.com, sold for $12-$14 million in 2006.
3. Fund.com, sold for $9.99 million in 2008.
4. Porn.com, sold for $9.5 million in 2007.
5. Business.com, sold for $7.5 million in 1999.
6. Diamond.com, sold to Ice.com for $7.5 million in 2006.
7. Beer.com, sold for $7 million in 2004.
8. Israel.com, sold for $5.88 million in 2004.
9. Casino.com, sold for $5.5 million in 2003.
10. Toys.com, sold to Toys ‘R Us for $5.1 million in 2009.

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Lancelot Encore

In early 2009, a Florida couple became the proud owners of Lancelot Encore, the world’s first commercially cloned puppy and one of the most expensive dogs in the world.

The Labrador retriever was cloned from samples thoughtfully taken by the couple five years ago from their beloved pet Lancelot. The cloned puppy looks just like his predecessor and the couple hopes that, being around the same people and many of the same dogs, Lancelot Encore will be every bit the alpha male that the original Lancelot was.

The couple won the chance to have their pet cloned in an auction held last July by BioArts, a California-based firm that employed Korea’s Sooam Biotech Research Foundation to recreate their darling dog. The hammer price of the pricey pooch was $155,000. That’s $100,000 more than was last paid for a commercially cloned animal, a bull named Second Chance.

A black Tibetan Mastiff

Later that year, however, Lancelot Encore’s price was dwarfed by the sale of a black Tibetan Mastiff named Yangtze River Number 2. Yangtze’s new owner, a Chinese millionaire identified only as Ms. Wang, met the pup while visiting Yushu in China’s Qinghai province with a Tibetan Mastiff she wished to breed with one of the region’s storied pureblood canines. As soon as she met the dog, then known as White Root, she knew she had to have him. Ultimately, she ended up paying $582,000 for the most expensive dog in the world.

Upon his arrival at an airport in Xi’an, Yangtze was greeted by a motorcade of thirty luxury cars and a crowd of spectators.

Look up “mastiff” in the dictionary and “large” and “powerful” will be among the first words you read. The different mastiff breeds have been bred for guarding and for fighting. The two most expensive dog breeds in the world are the Tibetan Mastiff and French Mastiff.

A Tibetan Mastiff

The largest Tibetan Mastiffs can stand over 31 inches tall and the breed typically weighs over 140 lbs. The dogs can be black, grey, brown or even, in some rare instances, completely white. Best of all, their coats shed odors—they lack the troublesome aroma that afflicts other large dogs. In both their native Tibet and the West, they have been prized as livestock guardians and have even been reported to have killed tigers to protect their flock.

The world’s most expensive dog, Yangtze River No. 2, was a Tibetan Mastiff.

A French Mastiff
(Image distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license.)

Typically standing over 24 inches and weighing more than 100 lbs, the French Mastiff can be a terror if not socialized at an early age. The sport of dog fighting was popular in Bordeaux, France, and the Dogue de Bordeaux, as the breed is more properly called, proudly bears the city’s name. The expensive breed may trace its ancestry to the Alans/Alaunts, a breed of dog from the Middle Ages, or the Bulldog. It was known in France as early as the 14th century and was entered into its first show in the 1863. It wasn’t until the 1920’s, though, that the French Mastiff became a uniform breed. The dog was virtually unknown outside of France until the late 1800s and was threatened with extinction after WWII. In 1970, though, the Dogue de Bordeaux population began to grow again.

Famous French Mastiffs include Beasley, who starred alongside Tom Hanks in Turner & Hooch, and Mac, recently stolen from and returned to Dutch football player Andy van der Meyde.

The average price for a puppy from one of these expensive breeds is $750 to $1,000.

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H. Couture Beauty may be defunct—visitors to their website are redirected to a search engine owned by the same youthful entrepreneur who founded H. Couture—but not before they produced the most expensive mascara in the world.

The mascara was offered for a limited time as part of H. Couture Beauty’s Socialite Collection. The smudge proof, water based mascara usually came in a luxurious case festooned with 1,000 hand set Swarovski crystals and topped with an 18k gold plated cap. Along with the mascara came a concierge service including a lifetime supply of refillable mascara tubes. The Socialite Collection, which also included a tube of lipstick also covered with Swarovski crystals, had a price of $589.

For one customer, however, that case just wasn’t fancy enough—and so a custom case bedecked with 2,500 blue diamonds was made. Complete with a similarly treated pink diamond tube of lipstick, this unique version of the Socialite Collection cost its buyer $14 million.

What kind of artist works with a hunting knife? Ask Mark Evans, the pioneer whose work has been called “leather sculpting.” That work will soon adorn the walls of one Russian billionaire’s mansion as the most expensive wallpaper in the world.
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The Miss Russia Pageant has only been around since 1993 and, since then, it has produced one Miss Universe and two winners of Miss World (one of whom was, unfortunately, later dethroned). Now, however, the pageant has a new claim to fame—the most expensive beauty pageant crown in the world.
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By Dave Klemencic and Jeremy Harris
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Antique Levi’s jeans
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