They say that money can’t buy happiness, but after reading this list you’ll agree that it can buy entertainment! Only the world’s biggest bank accounts could accommodate these price tags: for the discerning billionaire, only the best will do. Here are 44 ways to spend your billions on the top toys that money can buy.
44. Burger
The “Glamburger” is the most expensive hamburger per ounce: Honky Tonk, a London eatery, concocted this monstrosity at only $1768 per burger. The Glamburger’s ingredients are as geographically varied as its flavours—in addition to both white and black truffle, brie, matcha tea, beluga caviar and edible gold leaf, it features Iranian Saffron, New Zealand venison, Canadian lobster, and Japanese Kobe beef.
43. Yacht Rock
The world’s most expensive yacht, the Eclipse, cost Russian owner Roman Abramovich over $450 million! The world’s largest private yacht, it features a missile-detection system, two helipads, a luxury spa, and swimming pool, plus its own detachable mini-submarine. All 15 bedrooms come with 6 foot wide television screens, plus the yacht is guaranteed to stay private—its “anti-paparazzi shield” fires a laser beam intended to disrupt cameras.
42. The Batmobile
Chick-Fil-A founder S. Truett Cathy has made over $2 billion in fried chicken profits. He used a small portion of that wealth—a mere $250,000—to buy something even more iconic than Chick-Fil-A: the batmobile from the 1992 film Batman Returns.
41. Mini Ferrari
Don’t get caught looking common in a PowerWheels! For the rich, age doesn’t have to stand in the way of owning your first Ferrari: Miniature versions travel up to 7 mph on battery power for the perfectly reasonable price of $24,000.
40. Seabreacher Dolphin Boat
Launch out of the water like a dolphin in this dolphin-shaped submersible from Seabreacher for $500,000. These submarines can do barrel-rolls and travel at speeds up to 80 mph. Why swim with dolphins when you can be one?
39. Fancier Than A Goldfish
Steve Cohen, founder of SAC Capital Advisor, has made a cool $11.4 billion as a hedge fund manager. What better way to spend some of that than on art? And what art could be more satisfying to own than an original Damien Hirst shark preserved in formaldehyde?
38. All Your Eggs In One Basket
Viktor Vekselberg, a Russian oil and gas tycoon, paid $100m for nine original Fabergé eggs, the second largest collection of original Fabergé in the world. These highly-prized decorated Easter eggs are exquisitely made of gold and precious gems. Only 50 original Fabergé eggs were ever made, and only 43 survive.
37. Eggs You Can Eat
If Fabergé isn’t your thing, you can drop some of your dough on Almas caviar, the most expensive in the world. Produced from the eggs of a rare albino sturgeon, this “black gold” clocks in at $34,000 per kg. Don’t waste this on a cracker: traditionally, caviar is placed in the mouth with the thumb and the index forefinger and the eggs are popped with the tongue to release their flavour.
36. World’s Most Expensive Car
The Sultan of Brunei wouldn’t be content to drive around in any old beater. That’s why he spent a cool $14 million on the “Star of India,” a Rolls Royce convertible previously owned by the Maharaja of Rajkot. The 1934 Rolls Royce Phantom II is painted a deep ochre to symbolize purity.
35. World’s Most Expensive Haircut
If you’re going to be cruising around in the world’s most expensive car, you will want a mane to match. The Sultan of Brunei also spent a reported £15,000 (then $24,000) to fly a London barber to his home for a haircut. The barber, Ken Modestou, has been cutting the Sultan’s hair for 16 years. His usual fee? £30.
34. Baseball Glove
The world’s most expensive baseball glove is almost a steal at only $400. The Rawlings Primo takes two days to hand-craft from the hide from a cow’s backbone. While traditional gloves have two layers—the palm and the lining—the Primo has an extra layer called the “inner palm,” and comes in both infielder and outfielder sizes. Only 3,000 Primo gloves are produced per year.
33. Prize Pets
If Bond films are any indication, super-rich villains love their cats, and the Savannah cat is exception. This hypoallergenic feline is priced between $15,000 and $35,000, and has a spotted coat that resembles that of a leopard.
32. Yellow Submarine
After a long day at the office, what better way for a millionaire to wind down than some underwater sediment sampling and creature collecting? James Cameron certainly thought so—he comissioned the Deep Challenger, a deep ocean submersible of his own design, for $10 million. It’s for work and pleasure, however: he’s using the submarine to collect footage and samples for an upcoming National Geographic documentary.
31. A Rich Girl’s Best Friend
Clocking in at 530 carats, with 75 cut facets, the pear-shaped Cullinan I Diamond, aka the Great Star of Africa, is the largest rough-cut diamond in the world. If you don’t have $400 million lying around to purchase the Cullinan I, you can visit it on display with the Crown Jewels at the Tower of London for a £21.50 entrance fee.
30. The Green Monkey
Wait—do monkeys live in stables? This one does! The Green Monkey is actually the name of an American Thoroughbred racehorse, sold in 2006 as a two-year-old colt for the highest price ever paid at auction for a horse: $16,000,000. Though perhaps it wasn’t a great investment; The Green Monkey was retired in 2008, never having won a race. His stud fee is $5,000; he has sired a reported three foals.
29. Screaming Eagle Cabernet Sauvignon 1992
“Exceptionally impressive. Sensational nose of jammy blackcurrants and subtle toasty oak” is how a connoisseur once described this red wine. As only 175 cases of the wine were ever produced, we’ll have to take his word for it. At $500,000 a bottle, this is a one to savour.
28. Your Own Fragrance
Avoid the embarrassment of showing up at a gala wearing the same perfume as someone else with a bespoke fragrance from Guerlain. A custom fragrance developed by the Director of Fragrance Development will cost you $20,300 per bottle, though if you don’t have time to get involved during the customization process, they can make one special for $30,000. The formulas are top secret and are destroyed as soon as they are sold; the perfume is presented to customers in a Baccarat crystal bottle.
27. Adastra Superyacht
$15 million can buy you this space-age super yacht, which resembles a spaceship more than a boat. The Adastra can travel 4,000 miles without refuelling and can be controlled by iPad from 50 metres away. Roomy enough for 9 guests plus a 6 person crew, it features a full kitchen plus above-deck saloon.
26. Hair Wax
You’ll want the right hair wax to go with your $24,000 haircut, and at $1245 per container, Form Hair Wax is just what you’ll be looking for. This Scottish hair wax comes in a crystal jar engraved with a brass plaque, and boasts of Pro Vitamin B5 and Co-Enzyme to keep your locks looking richer than rich.
25. Private Theme Park
The Sultan of Brunei can’t stay off this list for long: he built Jerudong Park in 1994, the largest in South East Asia, for $1 billion. While the park is currently closed for renovations, it operated free of charge for the public for its first few years of operation. Michael Jackson graced the stage of Jerudong Park in 1996 for the Sultan’s birthday.
24. Private Island
Before he was Sir, Richard Branson snagged Necker Island, and uninhabited island in the British Virgin Islands, when he was only 28 years old. Though he reportedly paid only $100,000 for the island, it’s now worth $60 million. You can rent the island and its villa for a mere $60,000 per night.
23. Necker Nymph
While staying with your best friend, Sir Richard Branson, on private Necker Island, he’d be glad to give you a tour of the sea surrounding his island on the Necker Nymph, a submarine with a 360-degree view of the ocean. If Branson is not your best friend and you are renting Necker Island, you can tack on use of the Necker Nymph for $25,000 a week.
22. Gurkha Cigars
The world’s most expensive cigars will set you back a pretty penny: for the Gurkha Black Dragon, you can expect to shell out $1,150 for an 8 1/2 inch cigar. The Gurkha His Majesty’s Reserve is infused with Louix XII cognac; you can enjoy one for $750.
21. Potent Potables
$58.8 million AUD will buy you a delicious D’amalfi Limoncello Supreme—and an even better bottle. Three 13 carat diamonds, plus a diamond of 18.5 carats, decorate this bottle designed by British luxury designer Stuart Hughes. Commissioned for a customer, Antica Distelleriea Russo decided to produce an additional bottle, in case someone with the same extreme luxurious tastes came along.
20. Gem-filtered Vodka
A regular bottle of Diva Vodka will set you back $8700: it’s somehow triple-distilled through precious stones. If you want something a little fancier, you can shell out $1.3 million for a bottle of this vodka with the stones inside, filtering the vodka inside the bottle. How can gemstones filter vodka? Now that’s something I’d pay to find out!
19. World’s Fastest Motorcycle
The MTT Turbine Superbike can accelerate to a cruising speed of 375 km/hour in less than 15 seconds, making it the fastest motorcycle in the world. Fast enough for Jay Leno, comedian and notorious car collector, who owned one of the original Superbikes. You might have trouble finding somewhere to cruise at those speeds, but you could rest assured highway patrol could never catch you!
18. DTV Shredder
The love child of “a snowboard, a motocross bike, and a tank”: meet the DTV Shredder, a stand-up all-terrain vehicle that is capable of chewing up sand, snow, and hard terrain with its dual tank-treads. It’s like a Segway for adrenaline junkies!
17. Jet Pack
The sky’s the limit when you have bottomless wealth, and $250,000 will buy you your own personal jetpack, capable of rocketing 1,000 feet in the air.
16. Tibetan Mastiff
For $1.9 million, one would hope to buy a dog that can do some pretty impressive tricks, but the Tibetan Mastiff looks more cuddly than clever. These golden-haired shaggy pooches are around 30 inches tall, and are the newest glamour pets for the Chinese nouveau riche. A red mastiff named Big Splash sold for $1.5 million in 2011, and a puppy claimed to have “lion’s blood” was bought by a Chinese property developer for $1.9 million in 2014. That’s enough money to make even me roll over and play dead!
15. Maybach Exelero
While any 8-year-old boy can have a Lamborghini poster on his wall, the Maybach Exelero is so exclusive, not many people have even heard of it. Seen in Jay-Z’s video for his single “Lost Ones,” the rapper can be spotted cruising around in his black Maybach speedster, worth $8 million.
14. Solid Gold Monopoly
Chances are you already own both Boardwalk AND Park place if you can afford this $2 million special edition of Parker Brothers’ classic board game. Made of 18-karat gold, with 42-diamond-studded dice (alone valued at $10,000), the property cards are inlaid with 165 diamonds. You’ll have to pass GO many times to save up for this game!
13. Hot Air Balloon
David Koch is trying to prove that climate change is nothing but “hot air” and he’s chartered a personal hot air balloon to do it. His balloon stops at cities across the US and is funded as a vanity project.
12. 6 Minutes In Heaven
Sir Richard Branson, worth a reported $2.5 billion, has dropped $200 million on an 8-person passenger spacecraft. Tickets are available to the public at $200,000 a pop, though he’s convinced the New Mexico government to match his spaceship costs and invest $200,000 in a runway and hanger! That’s a lot of money for the 6 minutes of weightlessness a trip on his spacecraft will provide.
11. Badminton Cabinet
While the Sultan of Brunei is buying luxury haircuts and amusement parks, and the tech billionaires of America are investing in space travel, you can count on the European aristocracy to still spend their (inherited) money on old-money pleasures like furniture. Prince Hans Adam II of Liechtenstein bought an 18th Century Badminton Cabinet for $36 million, making it the most expensive piece of furniture ever sold.
10. Secret Space Rocket
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, worth $12.3 billion, isn’t the showman that Sir Richard Branson is. He’s spending his cash on a secret rocket capable of lifting humans 75 miles into the air, for 3 minutes of weightlessness, all while in a vertical position. He’s secured $3.7 million in funding from NASA for his secretive project.
9. Leonardo Da Vinci’s Journal
Trust Bill Gates to live up to his nerdy reputation—while Bezos and Branson are jetting off to the stratosphere, Gates spent $30.8 million on the Codex Leicester, one of 30 surviving journals of Leonardo Da Vinci. After his purchase, Gates decided to share the wealth of knowledge with humanity, and had the documents scanned. CD-ROM copies of the journals were available for less than $30.
8. When An SUV Isn’t Enough
If your Range Rover isn’t fancy enough, but you’re used to creature comforts like an iPhone charger, GPS, air conditioning, and a leather interior, the Ripsaw EV-2 Luxury Supertank will get you where you need to go in style, at 80 mph. Better have deep pockets if you want to spend your $300,000 on one of these, however: they get only 2 miles to the gallon, so be prepared to spend a chunk of change at the pump.
7. Pizza’s Here
Hold the pepperoni: the real way to drive up the price of any food is to add some edible gold leaf. New York City’s Industry Kitchen puts 24-karat Ecuadorian gold on their pizza, valued at $250 per slice (or $2000 for a whole pizza). The pie also comes topped with imported English Stilton cheese, foie gras, truffles, and Ossetra, a super-fancy caviar that itself costs $12,000 per kg. Pretty pricey for pizza in a city where a slice can be had almost anywhere for $1.
6. Air Jordans
Not even gold-dipped Nike Dunks ($6,000) or Bronze Air Jordan replicas ($2,250) can top the $11,000 price tag on the Blackout Air Jordan 11s. Rumoured to be a sample of a shoe that was to be produced later in the year—but wasn’t—one sneakerhead fan opened his wallet wide for these one-of-a-kind pair of shoes.
5. Fountain Pen
The Aurora Diamante pen is solid platinum covered in over 30 carats of Debeers diamonds, and comes with a rhodium-treated 18-karat solid gold nip personalized with a coat of arms, signature, or portrait. You’d have to have a pretty large bank account to be able to sign your cheques with this $1.3 million beauty.
4. Pocketwatch
Valued at $30 million, though technically priceless as the watchmaker refuses to sell, the Breguet Marie Antoinette Grande Complication Pocket Watch is the most complicated watch ever made. Commissioned in 1782 by an alleged lover of the French queen, this watch took over 40 years to construct, and its patron had died by the time it was completed. The watch is self-winding, and features a perpetual calendar, power reserve indicator, and a bimetallic thermometer, and expresses the difference between solar and civil time.
3. Iguana Yacht
When you’re rich enough, you shouldn’t have to choose between land and sea! For $500,000 you can travel aboard the amphibious Iguana, whose rubber and kevlar legs allow it to travel on land, and can fold into the hull when the vessel is in water, where it can travel at up to 40 knots. If freedom alone isn’t luxurious enough for you, the vessel can be customized with leather seats, gold trim, and exotic wood elements.
2. Sound System
Its two speakers plus an amplifier would set you back $2 million, but Transmission Audio’s Ultimate sound system is the audio equivalent of “Ferrari, Mazerati and Koenigsegg in one chassis.”
1. The Lair
Broadcom billionaire Henry Nicholas took his wife on a vacation, and while they were away he had contractors build a secret underground lair in the family home where he would indulge in his obsession with prostitutes and drug. Hery allegedly hired prostitutes for himself and customers, used cocaine, methamphetamines, ecstasy, and prescription painkillers. He also reportedly spiked the drinks of other technology execs without their knowledge.
