Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The World's Most Expensive Things

Episode Date: June 24, 2021

There is an old saying that one person’s trash is another person’s treasure. But sometimes, one person’s treasure is just another persons’ treasure that they can’t afford. I’m talking about the realm of ultra-expensive items which would be more than most people would make in a lifetime. Items so expensive, that they usually make no financial sense to buy them whatsoever. Learn more about the world’s most expensive things on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's an old saying that one person's trash is another person's treasure. But sometimes one person's treasure is just another person's treasure that they can't afford. I'm talking about the realm of the ultra expensive items, which would be more than most people would ever make in a lifetime. Items so expensive that they usually make absolutely no financial sense to buy them whatsoever. Learn more about the world's most expensive things on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day and tonight. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel

with us every week on the Thuline podcast from NPR. This episode is sponsored by CuriosityStream. If you happen to have a couple billion dollars burning a hole in your pocket, then Curiosity Stream might have some shows to help you decide on what to do with it. They have documentaries on classic cars, as well as places such as Versailles and France, and a show on history's greatest homes. They also have shows on the world's greatest works of art, and fellow billionaires such as the Sultan of Brunei. If you're not a billionaire, well, don't worry about it, because CuriosityStream is only $20 per year, not a month, but for a whole year. If you're a curious person, then start your subscription by visiting everything-everywhere.com

Or by clicking on the link in the show notes. To start off this discussion of really expensive things, I think it's first necessary to narrow down what I mean by a thing. I'm not talking about something which can be made more expensive by just amassing more of it. If oil is $50 a barrel, for example, then you could just buy two billion barrels and spend $100 billion. I don't think that is in the spirit of this discussion, so all the tea in China or all the land in Russia doesn't count as a thing. By the same measure, just encrusting something in jewels or making it out of gold doesn't really count either. You can just keep adding jewels to make it more expensive,

and the value of the object would just be the sum of the individual parts. Likewise, a solid gold rocket car is really just a big chunk of gold, and not really a good rocket car. It also has to be something that can or has actually been purchased or created. So Michelangelo's David might be worth a fortune, but it isn't for sale and probably never will be. Likewise, Buckingham Palace might be worth a lot of money, but it isn't something that can or ever would be sold. So with that out of the way,

let's start with a big ticket item which many people around the world own, a house. There are many palatial homes around the world that have sold for tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars. These are usually very large estates in areas with very high property prices. The most expensive home in the world currently on the market that I could find is called The One, and it's located in Bel Air, California. It's a 100,000 square foot or 9,300 square meter mansion with 20 bedrooms, 30 bathrooms, and five swimming pools. It currently has an asking price of $500 million. However, this is not the most expensive residential home which has been built, not by a long shot. That distinction goes to India's richest man, Mrakashimbani, who built a 400,000 square foot,

27-story residential tower in Mumbai for himself and his family. The building is called Antilla. It has a 168 car garage, three helipads, its own air traffic control center, a 50-person theater, and a snowroom which creates its own snowflakes. It requires a staff of 600 people to maintain the building, and it is currently valued at $1.2 billion. However, a spokesman from the architectural firm which designed it, said that the total cost of construction may have been as high as $3 billion.

Okay, well, how about a private jet? Every billionaire needs a private jet, right? While all private jets cost a lot of money, the most expensive ones aren't the jets that are marketed as private jets. We aren't talking about Gulf Streams or Lear jets. The most expensive private aircraft are actually customized commercial wide-body jumbo jets. The largest commercial aircraft in history is the Airbus A380, and it can see up to 853 people.

Not surprisingly, the most expensive private aircraft ever designed was a customized A380. It was designed but ultimately canceled by Saudi Prince Al-Aweid bin Talal, who was one of the richest people in the world. The plane was to have a Turkish bath, garage space for cars, and a stable for horses and camels. It would have cost $500 million, but it was canceled for financial reasons. Russian billionaire Alashear Ashemov currently owns a custom

Airbus A340-300. The plane itself, before customization, costs $238 million. The total price is estimated to be between $350 and $500 million. However, this is not the most expensive plane in the world. The next version of Air Force One is estimated to cost approximately $4 billion. It will be a customized Boeing 7478, and the expense will come from all the communication and defensive customizations which will be required. Okay, so we got our house and we got our jet, but you're going to be laughed out of the billionaires club if you don't have a yacht. There are many super yachts that sell for hundreds of millions of dollars. However, there is one yacht that crushes them all in terms of price. Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich owns the mega yacht eclipse. At 533 feet long, it's currently the third longest yacht in the world. However, it's also the most expensive yacht. Built in 2010, the cost of the yacht is estimated to be between,

$1.5 and $1.9 billion. The ship has two separate helipads, two swimming pools, and a missile defense system, which is exactly the kind of ship you need when you're sailing to your Bond villain layer. While this is the most expensive private ship, there are more expensive ships out there. The USS Gerald R. Ford is the United States' newest nuclear aircraft carrier. It's currently undergoing testing, but the total cost of the ship, including all of the design, research and development was over $14 billion. Billionaires can't just have mansions, jets, and yachts. You have to decorate it, and to do that, you need art.

Art prices have been going through the roof over the last several decades. There have been several dozen paintings that have sold for over $100 million. However, there's one painting that, when it went up for auction, crushed every record for art prices. Leonardo da Vinci's Salvador Mundi was sold at auction in 2017 for a whopping four-rength. $450 million. It's one of only a very small number of surviving paintings by Da Vinci and one of the very, very few in private hands. The buyer of the painting was never revealed, but it's believed to be the Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The painting hasn't been seen since its sale. The story behind Salvador Mundi is actually really fascinating, and I'll devote a special episode to that in the future. I should also note that the most expensive book ever sold was also created by Leonardo da Vinci.

The Codex Lester, which is a notebook from Da Vinci, was purchased by Bill Gates in 1994 for $30 million. There are a host of other things that a proper billionaire needs, however. Let's start with a car. The most expensive car ever produced was the Pagani Zonda H.P. Barchetta. Only three of them were ever made, and all three of them were delivered to the Pagani CEO, Horatio Pagani. The cost of each car was reportedly $17.5 million, which is far above the cost of any other car which has been sold. The most expensive watch ever sold at auction was a Paddock-Philippe Grand Master Chime sold at auction in 2019 for $31 million. The most expensive TV is the 370-inch Titan Zeus. It has a 4K

display that retails for $1.6 million. All of this is great, but what is the most expensive thing if we don't worry about luxury items? What if you had the power and the budget of a government? The answer to that question isn't an airplane or a ship or even a building. It's something that no individual at this point in time could possibly afford to build. That thing is the International Space Station. The cost of the International Space Station is estimated to be $150 billion at this point. That includes the cost of construction of the modules, the cost of launching everything into orbit, and the cost of maintenance. The cost of launching stuff into orbit is dropping rapidly. It isn't totally ridiculous that at some point maybe in the next several decades,

there might be a small, private space station in orbit. If any billionaires out there listening are wishing to impress their billionaire friends by buying the most expensive something, I can help. We can work a deal for the most expensive podcast ad. Just drop me an email. We will make this work.

The associate producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Thor Thompson. If you'd like to support the show, please donate over at patreon.com. There is content only of available to supporters, merchandise, and even opportunities for a show producer credit. If you know someone you think would enjoy the show, please share it with them. Also remember, if you leave a five-star review, I'll read your review on the show.