You probably know that the advent of the web has caused a steady decline in newspaper circulation. Eventually, printed broadsheets may become a thing of the past entirely, relegated to museums and rare book libraries. In that case, certain newspaper copies may command exceedingly high prices for their historical value.

For now, though, it’s the stamps that matter.

The world’s most expensive newspapers is an issue of the Romanian newspaper, Zimbrulu and Vulturulu (The Aurochs and the Eagle), that was mailed to Galati when it was published in 1858. Because of its weight, the newspaper required no less than eight Cap de Bour (Bull Head) stamps. These stamps are now quite rare, quite expensive and quite coveted by philatelists (i.e. stamp collectors).

The priceless paper found its way into the hands of the David Feldman auction house. From there it was auctioned to art collector Joseph Hackmey for €829,500—over $1.3 million in the US! That makes it not only the most expensive newspaper in the world but also one of the most expensive philatelic objects in the world.

How would you like to gain a piece of television and fashion history while helping out children with learning difficulties? Bid on one of the most expensive sweaters and you may be able to do just that.

Erinn Cosby, one of Bill Cosby’s four daughters, is auctioning off three of her famous father’s notorious sweaters “just in time for Father’s Day.” Bidding starts on June 2nd and proceeds from the sale of the three sweaters will go to the Hello Friend/Ennis William Cosby foundation.

When playing Dr. Heathcliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show (1984-1992), Bill Cosby most often wore shirts with loud, geometric, swirling and/or patchwork patterns. This habit gave rise to the term “Cosby sweater,” used to describe similar sweaters.

Bill and Camille Cosby set up Hello Friend after the murder of their son, Ennis Cosby, while he was studying for his master’s degree in education at Columbia University. Having struggled with dyslexia as a child, he wished to become a special education teacher. The Ennis William Cosby Foundation seeks to help teachers address the needs of children with similar difficulties.

The most expensive sweaters are being auctioned on eBay. Bidding starts at $5,000.

Fans of the immensely successful television drama, Lost, may be the only people who’ve heard of the world’s most expensive candy bar. Aside from making numerous appearances in the show, the candy bar also played a significant part in the show’s accompanying alternate reality game, The Lost Experience.

An alternate reality game, or ARG, is a game that uses the real world as a platform for an interactive narrative. Much like a role-playing game, participants’ actions can affect the outcome of the story. Unlike an RPG, however, the rules governing the game aren’t formalized and players do not take on fictional roles.

The Apollo Bar appears as part of the bounty looted from a research station on the mysterious island where the show is set. The real life Apollo Bar, on the other hand, was given out at various distribution events while The Lost Experience ran. Recipients were invited to photograph themselves with the chocolate bar’s wrapper and submit the photos to whereisalvar.com, where they can still be seen. Once enough photos were submitted, The Lost Experience’s creators released the ARG’s final element, a video that resolved the game’s ongoing mysteries.

The most expensive candy bar was one of these Apollo Bars. Auctioned on eBay just prior to the game’s resolution, the candy bar earned its seller £69.78 (just over $130 USD). Apollo Bars can still be found on eBay, but can typically be purchased for less than $10.

If you’re looking for a guitar pick, there’s no shortage of different shapes, styles and materials available for you to choose from. Customized picks have been prevalent since the days when Rick Nielsen of Cheap Trick would throw hundreds of them out into the audience. In fact, most famous guitarists have their own custom guitar pick. Even among the myriad of different styles, some plectrums are more unique than others. The world’s most expensive guitar picks are some of those.

Starpics, an Australian company known for plectrums made of precious metals, created a completely unique pair of guitar picks. Like their other picks, they’re guaranteed to last pretty much forever and to significantly reduce string breakage. So what makes these picks so special?

They’re made of meteors.

These two luxury picks were fashioned from pieces of Gibeon meteorite. Said to be around 4 billion years old, Gibeon meteorites were discovered in 1836 in Namibia, Africa, where their sale and export were banned by the local government. Despite that fact, over twenty-five tons of the meteorites have been recovered and it is the most commonly found meteorite on the market today. One of the most interesting things about the meteorites is the pattern of Widmanstatten lines created by their frigid passage through space. These patterns are preserved in the picks and can be seen in the picture above.

The most expensive guitar picks in the world are priced at $5,000 AUD ($4,674 USD).

Getting the autograph of your favorite celebrity can be a thrilling experience for most. For serious philographers—autograph collectors—living celebrities’ John Hancocks are just the tip of the iceberg. For these collectors, the most valuable autographs are those of deceased historical figures. Still more valuable are those same signatures decorating handwritten documents and, especially, personal letters. [...]

A movie poster collection may be anything from an extension of another hobby to a sign of serious passion for film history. One buyer may be willing to pay $10 or $20 for an original “Fellowship of the Ring” one-sheet while another pays $47,000 for one of the few remaining “Grand Hotel” posters. With the [...]

Ever wonder what someone does with a mathematics degree other than teaching math? Richard Garfield, while studying combinatorial mathematics at the University of Pennsylvania, decided to apply his arithmetic skills to game design. He earned his PhD in 1993, the same year role-playing game publisher Wizards of the Coast first published a card game of [...]

Parker Brothers’ famous game of economics, Monopoly, has been called “the most played board game in the world.” It’s certainly a believable title when you consider that, according to Hasbro, the game has been played by over 750 million people since Parker Brothers originally published it in 1935.
Monopoly is actually based on a game patented [...]

If you balk at dropping $40 on a Transformers toy for your kid this Christmas, then you’ll be happy to know that the world’s most expensive toy robot wasn’t made for retail. In order to bring more exposure to one of their flagship toy lines, Japanese toymakers Bandai teamed up with well-known jewelers Ginza Tanaka. [...]

The Luger, more correctly known as the Parabellum-Pistole, is a semi-automatic pistol design patented by Georg Luger in 1898 and manufactured by DWM (Deutsche Waffen- und Munitionsfabriken Aktien-Gesellschaft) in 1900. Originally designed for 7.65×22mm Parabellum cartridges, US Army trials in 1906 demanded a semi-automatic pistol with a larger caliber. DWM’s submission, a Luger adapted to [...]

Beanie Babies may have dropped out of the spotlight since their heyday in the late 90s, but that doesn’t mean they’ve disappeared entirely. While he nearly discontinued the line in 1999, Ty Warner was persuaded by popular demand to continue producing Beanie Babies. The formula that made Beanie Babies so popular was that each doll [...]

The Ming Dynasty ruled China from 1368 to 1644. That era in Chinese history saw the creation of a startling amount of carved lacquerwares, glazed porcelain wares, embroidered silks and works of art in a variety of other materials. The Empire of the Great Ming also produced a great number of forgeries designed to part [...]

Dice have come in many different shapes and sizes over the year, particularly those used in war games and the role-playing games that followed them. From the gold-plated, six-sided die to the colossal, and somewhat awkward, 100-sided die, there has always been some special die for gaming enthusiasts to drool over. Iriso Seimetsu, a [...]

PEZ may be one of the most iconic candies of the modern era. Invented in 1927 by Viennese confectioner Eduard Hass III, the first PEZ flavor was peppermint. In fact, the name PEZ is derived from the German word Pfefferminze, meaning “peppermint.” The most remarkable aspect of PEZ candy, though, is the PEZ dispenser. These [...]

A very expensive bottle of scotch was just sold in New York, prompting us to wonder at the most expensive scotch. As it happens, that wasn’t it. The most expensive bottle of scotch was a Dalmore 62 Single Highland Malt Scotch Whisky, sold in 2005 to an anonymous buyer for £32,000—over $58,000 at the time [...]

Talal Khouri, a Dubai-based businessman, made history recently when he became the owner of the world’s most expensive license plate. He won the expensive license plate after placing the winning bid during an auction to benefit individuals with special needs.
Oddly, the expensive license plate displays the number ‘5’. You would think the most expensive license [...]

Rarity usually determines the value of a collectors’ item, but that’s not always the case. Sometimes the story behind the item sets its price. Such is the case with the 1894-S Barber Dime. Recently sold for $1.9 million, this Barber Dime is the most expensive dime in US history.
Barber, or “Liberty Head”, coinage was produced [...]

Bearing Liberty’s head on one side and a circular chain on the other, the most expensive US penny is the 1793 Sheldon NC-1 Chain cent. The chain’s fifteen links surrounding the words “ONE CENT” represent the unity of the fifteen colonies extant in the US at the time. The design was simple enough to allow [...]

Audi’s Auto Union Type C pedal car may just be the world’s most expensive toy car. At an unofficial price of over $14,000 USD, the pedal car hearkens back to the days when Audi was known as Auto Union, a joint venture of four German auto manufacturers. The original Auto Union Type C dominated the [...]

The ball marker may be one of the most insignificant pieces of golfing equipment. It’s simply used to mark the position of your ball when it needs to be cleaned or if it’s in an opponent’s putting line. Who would want to mark the location of their ball with some cheap piece of plastic, though? [...]

Space travel buffs have been collecting items that were flown into space for years. The demand for items that have been to outer space increased with the sale of the world’s most expensive M&M candy. Strangely enough, it was not a package or several pieces. It was one single brown M&M flown on board Paul [...]

The game Trivial Pursuit® has been a favorite of board game enthusiasts since its official introduction in 1982. The game was invented back in 1979 when two Canadian friends decided to test each other’s knowledge of trivia, which led to the creation of their very own board game. A few years later in 1988, Parker [...]

Since the turn of the twentieth century, collectors have swooned over rare and unusual stamps. In fact, there’s even a field of research, called philately, devoted to the study of valuable stamps. You might ask why someone would spend so much time and/or money on a small piece of sticky paper that once graced the [...]

The German teddy bear company, Steiff is responsible for the production many expensive collectible bears and also the most expensive teddy bear ever made. The Steiff company claims to have made the world’s first teddy bear and is has made this golden bear to commemorate its 125th anniversary.

The expensive bear has a mouth made [...]

by Hunter Davis
When I hear the phrase, “most expensive camera”, I imagine a super high-tech digital camera, maybe one used in space by NASA to take pictures of Mars or the moon or some cool camera capable of going under water to extreme depths.

I was a little surprised to hear that a Daguerreotype camera dating [...]