COSTLY CRUISE SHIP-
In 2006, Royal Caribbean International embarked on an ambitious project called Project Genesis. Their mission was to build the world’s largest cruise ship. Scheduled to sail in fall of 2009, Project Genesis isn’t just the largest ship. It’s also the most expensive cruise ship in the world.
Project Genesis isn’t Royal Caribbean International’s first enormous cruise ship. Their last endeavor, Freedom of the Seas, also broke records with its ability to carry over 4,000 passengers and its weight in excess of 150,000 tons.
Project Genesis will, of course, break both records. The 1,180 foot long ship will weigh 220,000 tons and carry a maximum of 6,400 passengers and 2,100 crew members. The ship is so big, in fact, that it will have a common area, as large as a football field, called Central Park. Central Park’s piazza will even host street performers and live concerts. Additionally, the park will be surrounded by a variety of restaurants, including fine dining at 150 Central Park, Italian cuisine at Giovanni’s Table and steakhouse fare at Royal Caribbean’s own Chops Grille.
The ship will also include a number of bars ranging from wine bars to the impressive Rising Tide bar—an engineering marvel that actually moves through three decks from Central Park to the public spaces below.
Norway’s Aker Yards is handling the construction of the ship. Their price for building the most expensive cruise ship in the world: $1.24 billion!
COSTLY BOX OF CHOCOLATES-
MarieBelle has a reputation for making some of the world’s finest chocolates, which is quite extraordinary considering they only opened their doors in 2000. A box of only four pieces of their chocolates costs $12.
Now consider the fact that the Chocolate Picnic Steamer Trunk contains 500 pieces of chocolate ganache, five pounds of chocolate bark and croquettes, eighty ounces of Aztec hot chocolate in four tins, a twenty-ounce tin of Aztec Iced Chocolate, eight Aztec Hot Chocolate Bars, a teapot and infuser, two china teacups, a leather-bound journal and a small library of books on chocolate.
That’s bound to be a bit pricey, isn’t it?
Well, it may come as something of a shock that the steamer trunk only costs $15,000. Of course, you also have to purchase it in person from their New York store. Surely that will make up for the incredibly low price of the world’s most expensive box of chocolates.
COSTLY CHOCOLATE-
Fritz Knipschildt is the architect behind the most expensive chocolate in the world and is sometimes called the Willy Wonka of Connecticut. He founded Knipschildt Chocolatier in South Norwalk, Connecticut in 1999 and brought his Danish culinary training with him. All of his chocolates are handmade artisan products using only the freshest natural ingredients, with no additives or preservatives. He sells a chocolate called the Madeleine that must be ordered in advance. The Madeleine contains a creamy truffle ganache made from French Valrhona chocolate blended with fresh cream infused with vanilla pods and pure Italian truffle oil.
This extravagant yet simple ganache then has a French Perigold truffle rolled inside of it and the whole thing is dusted with cocoa powder. The ingredients alone don’t explain why this truffle chocolate is the world’s most expensive chocolate ever sold. Mr. Knipschildt’s explanation for the price tag is the tremendous amount of work that goes into producing these chocolates. The ganache is whipped and folded by hand for a long time to make it as silky as humanly possible, and he even has to perform the hand rolling of the Perigold truffle inside of the ganache within a refrigerated room so that the ganache hardens ever so slightly enough to be workable. Each one of these luscious truffle chocolates has a price tag of $250, making the confection cost approximately $2,600 per pound in quantity.
COSTLY SANDWICH -
Named the McDonald Sandwich, after it’s creator, chef Scott McDonald, a sandwich claiming to be the world’s most expensive sandwich is to go on display at Selfridges Department Store in London on Monday. The sandwich contains Wagyu beef, fresh lobe foie gras, black truffle mayonnaise, brie de meaux, rocket, red pepper and mustard confit, and English plum tomatoes, placed between 24-hour fermented sour dough bread. The price for the most expensive sandwhich you will ever eat is 85 pounds ($148.33, 122.53 euro) per sandwich!
It is being reported that the store has already taken five advance orders for the most expensive sandwich, but the store does not expect the meal to be a best seller. If a price of around $148 US dollars for an expensive sandwich doesn’t give you heartburn, then maybe this costly lunch is just perfect for you.
COSTLY POCKET WATCH-
In 1933, Patek Phillipe delivered a gold coach watch to New York banker Henry Graves Jr. dubbed the “Supercomplication”. For over a decade, Graves had taken part in a vain competition with another of America’s richest elites, Ohio automobile engineer James Ward Packard to have commissioned a watch with the most complications in the world. The horology term ‘complication’ refers to a mechanical feature beyond the simple hours, minutes, and seconds movement. The Graves Supercomplication watch had 24 complications, and took over five years to design and manufacture the 900 parts making up the complicated and expensive pocket watch. Packard ended up losing the competition at this point.
The Graves Supercomplication had more complications than any other timepiece ever created until Patek Phillipe outdid themselves in 1989 with the Caliber ‘89, which surpassed the Supercomplication by containing 33 complications. Among the secondary functions featured by Graves’s pocket watch was a celestial chart based on the night sky above Graves’ home in New York! After Graves died the watch ended up in Seth G. Atwood’s Time Museum in Rockford, Illinois from 1953 to 1999.
When the museum closed in 1999, the watch was sold at Sotheby’s Masterpieces from the Time Museum auction. On December 2, 1999 the world’s most expensive pocket watch ever became the Graves Supercomplication when an anonymous Middle Eastern collector made the final bid of $10 million dollars.
COSTLY BELT BUCKLE-
Swiss designer Roland Iten won’t touch a timepiece of any sort, but he still manages to create high precision, mechanical fashion accessories for men of discriminating taste. His solid gold, mechanical belt buckle is as much a work of art as it is a work of engineering. It takes nine to eighteen months to produce and, as such, costs around $25,000. That quite possibly makes it the most expensive belt buckle in the world.
The expensive watch takes so long to produce because it uses the same manufacturing process as Geneva’s renowned watch-making industry. Its mechanical features make the belt especially attractive to those who like to loosen their belt after a big meal.
Roland Iten’s gold buckle isn’t the first luxury belt buckle, of course. Perhaps the second most expensive belt buckles in the world adorn these belts by Kale Miles. The belts, available in three different styles, include buckles made of seven to eight ounces of platinum. The $18,000 price tag, however, also includes the rest of the rather nice leather belt.
The world’s most expensive belt buckle and other items (cufflinks are mentioned) from the same collection will be launched at the SIHH watch fair in Geneva.
COSTLY CANADIAN WHISCKY-
Canadian whisky” refers to any whisky that is mashed, distilled and aged at least three years in a 700 L or smaller wooden barrel, all within Canadian borders. By Canadian law, any such whisky may also be labeled “rye whisky”—even if low rye content would prevent it from being labeled such elsewhere. Crown Royal Canadian Blended Whisky, one of the most popular Canadian whiskies, was originally brewed in 1939 to commemorate the first Royal Tour of Canada by King George VI and Queen Elizabeth (the late Queen Mother). The Crown Royal brand is now owned by Diageo, the world’s largest producer of spirits.
The presentation of Crown Royal’s Extra Rare Heritage Blend to Her Royal Majesty hearkens back to that inaugural event. The expensive whisky’s high rye content can be attributed to the rare barrels selected by Crown Royal’s master blender, Andrew MacKay, who supervised its production. In deference to the venue chosen for the presentation of the exclusive blend, Diageo commissioned Casey Hyland of Glassworks in Louisville to create the bottle, which is etched with 24-karat gold leaf for lettering.
While the most expensive Canadian whisky in the world is obviously not for sale, it has an estimated value of over $10,000.
The female reproductive organ of a flower saffron crocus (Crocus sativus) are the dried filaments known as Saffron. More than 75,000 of these stigmas must be hand picked to produce one pound of Saffron threads, it is no wonder that this is the most expensive spice.
Saffron has been cultivated for more than 3,000 years for its unique flavor and strong coloring power. The expensive spice can have a bright orange-yellow color with a distinct scent, and is sold in either powder form, but deep red filaments are preferable to avoid adulteration. More than 150 volatile and aroma-yielding compounds are in Saffron, which has been used as a medicine and aphrodisiac in previous times.
Saffron is produced in countries such as Greece, Spain, Turkey, Iran, India and Morocco, and then sold in different grades by color, taste and fragrance.
The price of saffron varies based on quality and amount, but grams of the best saffron have been known to go for as much as $15.
COSTLY NETBOOK-
Netbooks, smaller and less powerful laptops meant to be used in conjunction with a host of web-based applications, entered the public consciousness with the One Laptop per Child (OLPC) Association’s goal of distributing the ultraportable computers throughout developing countries. Now netbooks like Asus’ Eee PC and Acer’s Aspire One are starting to overtake the laptop PC market.
So, you know, eventually someone will have to go and stick some diamonds on one.
Until then, the most expensive netbook in the world is this unique Aspire One painted in the Kyo Yuzen tradition by UFO-Hayashi, a Japanese artist known for his work on iPods, phones and other gadgets. The painting represents life in its spring, rebounding after the long and cold winter. Painting the device took the artist around three months to finish and shavings from nautilus shells were used in the process.
As for its specs, the unique netbook features the Aspire One’s typical 1.6 GHz Atom processor, 1 GB memory and a 120 GB hard drive.
The world’s most expensive netbook is up for grabs on eBay until May 1st with a starting bid of $3,000.
COSTLY OFFICE CHAIR-
How much time do you spend in your office chair? For some, the comfort offered by an office chair is important as that of a bed. After all, anyone with a desk job can spend over half of their day in one or the other. If that sounds like your typical day and you happen to be a millionaire, then the world’s most expensive office chair may be right for you.
Created by Pininfarina, an Italian car design firm best known for designing luxury cars like Ferraris and Cadillacs, the Aresline Xten could be the most comfortable chair ever made. The Dynamic Synchronized Tilting system allows users to tilt the back and the seat independently while the Technogel in the cushions makes them conform to the shape of the user. The chair is also made from a durable fabric called Dynatec, which is also used by Olympic athletes.
The most expensive chair in the world is priced at $1.5 million. Unfortunately for the rest of the world, it’s also only offered in the UAE—as if there’s a market for luxury items in places like Dubai.
If you’ve considerably less to spend on your office chair but you still want something expensive, then check out this chair by award-winning designer and architect Hadi Teherani of Germany. As far as we know, it’s the world’s second most expensive office chair at a (relatively) low price of $65,000. Instead of high-tech features and rare leathers, this chair is just well-designed. Of course, it also features silver and gold plating. That can’t hurt the price.
If you’re interested in purchasing one of the most expensive office chairs in the world, check your company’s expense account policy first. You never know, they might approve it.
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