Million-dollar objects

Could you guess which Marilyn Monroe's object sold for $4.6 million?

Could you have a gold mine right in your own home and not know it? Everyone keeps a vintage concert ticket, a family heirloom, or some collectible tucked away in a drawer somewhere. But imagine finding out that what you think is clutter is actually worth thousands of dollars. A lock of Elvis Presley’s hair was auctioned for over $100,000, a violin from the Titanic brought in $1.7 million, and even a banana taped to a wall reached an astonishing $6.2 million. These unbelievable sales prove that when nostalgia, fame, and history come together, people will pay jaw-dropping money for the strangest objects imaginable.

You grew up listening to Elvis’ songs and watching his movies. You know from the highlights in his life to trivia details only true fans have. The man was larger than life, and so was his hair.

In November of 2002, a lock of Elvis’ hair sold at auction for a staggering $115,000. The hair had been carefully saved by his longtime barber, Homer Gilleland, who worked with Elvis for over 20 years and kept the trimmings in a plastic bag after giving him haircuts before television appearances and movie shoots. In order to prove its authenticity, Elvis’ associate Tom Morgan Jr. and memorabilia expert John Reznikoff both signed an authenticity certificate that backed the auction for which the anonymous avid fan paid thousands of dollars.

Few movie moments are more recognizable than Marilyn Monroe standing over a subway grate with her iconic white dress blowing up in The Seven Year Itch, the 1955 film_._ Marilyn was a representation of the golden age of movies, which is why items of hers were valued at such a high cost. And the white dress was, probably, the most expensive of them all.

The iconic ivory piece belonged to fellow actress, Singin’ in the Rain star, Debbie Reynolds. Funny enough, she had bought it directly from 20th Century Fox for only $200. Reynolds had spent decades gathering costumes and props from classic movies and hoped to open a dedicated museum. Her project was rejected five times by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and, due to personal debt, she had no other choice but to auction some pieces of her collection. Marilyn’s dress was one of those pieces and was auctioned in 1999 in Los Angeles for no less than $4.6 million dollars.

You’ve learned about the RMS Titanic tragedy growing up, and watched the tragic romance of Jack and Rose in the 1997 movie. More than a century after the sinking, people are still fascinated by this event, and for good reason, considering that we still hear fascinating stories about it.

In 2025, the gold pocket watch belonging to businessman Isidor Straus, co-owner of the Macy’s department stores, sold at auction for an astonishing $2.3 million, setting a new world record for Titanic memorabilia. The previous record had been set just a year earlier in 2024 by a Tiffany & Co. watch gifted to Captain Arthur Rostron of the RMS Carpathia, the ship that rescued more than 700 survivors from the icy Atlantic. Three wealthy widows who survived the sinking presented him with the watch as a thank-you for his bravery.

The paintings hanging on your walls have been selected among thousands of pieces, only responding to your personal taste, and that’s because art is subjective. But when you hear that a banana taped to a wall was auctioned and brought in $6.2 million, the conversation takes a fun turn.

Comedian is a duct-taped banana piece of art created by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan in 2019, which immediately became the most talked-about artwork in the world. In 2024, the artwork sold at Sotheby’s, New York, for an astonishing $6.2 million to cryptocurrency entrepreneur Justin Sun, who later joked he planned to eat the banana himself. The buyer was really paying for a certificate of authenticity and instructions on how to replace the 35-cent-worth banana whenever it rotted. Modern art is not for everyone.

You probably still know the words to plenty of Beatles songs by heart. The Fab Four changed music, fashion, and pop culture forever, and fans have spent decades collecting anything connected to them. Old records, concert posters, sure. But few people expected one of John Lennon’s toilets to become part of history, too.

John Lennon lived in Berkshire, England, from 1969 to 1972, where he recorded part of the Imagine album. But that’s not the only highlight of the apartment. In there, there was also a porcelain toilet, which was handed to his contractor, John Hancock, after the house was remodeled. Instead of getting rid of it, he stored it in a shed for nearly 40 years, and, in 2010, after his death, the unusual piece went up for auction in Liverpool, during the annual Beatles Convention. Organizers were expecting it to sell for $1,300, but instead collected almost $13,000 from an unidentified private overseas investor.

Most people have old notebooks filled with recipes, reminders, or random thoughts. Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, instead, changed the way people understood science and nature. One of his most famous journals, the Codex Leicester, dates back to the early 1500s and contains da Vinci’s sketches and scientific observations. The pages explore everything from astronomy to the movement of water.

In 1994, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates purchased the manuscript at auction for a staggering $30.8 million, making it the most expensive book ever sold at the time. But it wasn’t for his private library. Gates loans the Codex to museums around the world so visitors can see da Vinci’s work up close.

The new millennium was defined by technology, pop style, and boy bands. Justin Timberlake was part of NSYNC, one of the most popular bands at the time, and fans followed him everywhere. In 2000, during an interview at New York radio station Z-100, Timberlake left behind a partially eaten French toast. Most people would have cleared the table, but one clever DJ saw an opportunity.

The leftover toast was auctioned on eBay, where a 19-year-old superfan from Wisconsin paid $1,025 to own it. Over the years, rumors claimed the toast sold for even more on a second auction, but the original auction price remains one of the strangest celebrity purchases ever recorded.

Most people remember Einstein as the wild-haired genius behind the theory of relativity, but one of his most valuable possessions was not a scientific formula at all. It was a simple handwritten note about happiness.

In 1922, while staying at the Imperial Hotel in Tokyo during a lecture tour, Einstein received news that he had won the Nobel Prize in Physics. When a courier arrived at his room with a delivery, Einstein realized he had no cash for a tip. Instead, he handed the messenger two signed notes. One of them read: "A calm and humble life will bring more happiness than the pursuit of success and the constant restlessness that comes with it." Decades later, the message was sold at auction in Jerusalem for an astonishing $1.56 million. The note remained in the courier’s family before being sold by his nephew, proving Einstein’s prediction was right after all.

Chances are, your kids or grandkids have read the worldwide phenomenon, Harry Potter. From the very beginning, the wizard created by English writer J.K. Rowling became an obsession for millions of people around the world. But for Rowling, things weren’t so easy. She was a struggling writer, working on her stories in a small apartment with mismatched secondhand furniture.

One of those chairs, a worn wooden dining chair from the 1930s, became the place where she typed the first two books of the saga. She later painted messages directly onto the piece, including the line: "I wrote Harry Potter while sitting on this chair." Rowling first auctioned the chair in 2002 to raise money for charity; years later, it resurfaced again and was sold at auction in New York for $394,000. The sale included a personal letter from Rowling explaining that the chair was the comfiest she had at the time.

Names that lie

Mountain chickens are frogs? 10 animals with misleading names

Some animals have commonly been given names that might lead you to believe false things about them. For example, as we all know, guinea pigs are not pigs, sea horses are not horses, and starfish are neither stars nor fish. So, how did these names come to be? While lookalike allegations may justify some, others are simply far-fetched. Is there any truth or reason behind these inaccurate nicknames—like "firefly"? Let’s explore 10 animal names that are, arguably, misnomers.

Let’s start with one of the most far-fetched names on this list. Mountain chickens aren’t birds at all—they’re large frogs. And they don’t live in mountains, either. These frogs are found mostly in the Caribbean, inhabiting lowland rainforests and swamps. A more accurate and realistic name for them is "giant ditch frogs," which refers to their large size and their tendency to dwell near water bodies.

So, how did they get this name? The story goes that locals found the frog’s meat similar in taste and texture to chicken. Yes, this now critically endangered species was once considered a delicacy in local cuisines.

You would think that the red panda is just a smaller, red version of the giant panda. After all, they share cute faces, patches around their eyes, and similar snouts and ears. But you’d be wrong—red pandas are not bears.

Here’s the explanation: The word "panda" is believed to derive from the Nepali word ponya, which refers to animals with claws adapted for eating bamboo. This is the biggest trait red and giant pandas have in common: their heavily bamboo-based diets. Red pandas, sometimes nicknamed "firefoxes," belong to a mammal family of their own and are more closely related to skunks than to giant pandas.

Titmouses aren’t rodents—did you know? Instead, they are songbirds known for their gray or bluish-gray feathers. One of the most common species is the tufted titmouse, and you’ll be pleased to know that the plural form is, indeed, "titmice."

The name "titmouse" comes from Old English, where tit referred to a small creature, and mase was a general term for a bird. Over time, mase became obsolete, and "titmase" was transformed into "titmouse" due to the similarity between the words. Arguably, there’s also some physical resemblance between the gray color and beady, round eyes of both titmice and mice.

Yes, the name "electric eel" is misleading—but not for the reasons you might think. These aquatic animals are indeed capable of generating shocks of electricity, up to ​​860 volts, which they use to stun their prey or defend themselves. However, strictly speaking, they are not eels.

Unlike true eels, which belong to the family Anguillidae, electric eels are part of the knifefish family and are more closely related to catfish. Early European explorers misnamed them based on their elongated, eel-like bodies.

Seahorses are fish, just like salmon or clownfish. Arguably, they look nothing like those species. Instead, for centuries, humans have noticed their resemblance to horses. Seahorses have a distinctive upright swimming posture, elongated heads and necks, and a caudal fin that even resembles a horse’s mane.

Their scientific name, Hippocampus, is borrowed from the Ancient Greek word hippókampos. Interestingly, the term didn’t originally refer to this animal but to a mythological marine creature. In Greek, hippos means "horse," and kampos means "sea monster."

Guinea pigs aren’t pigs—nor are they from Guinea, the West African country. Instead, they are rodents native to South America. By now their name has become synonymous with "experiment subject" because of how frequently they were used in scientific research.

There are a couple of theories behind their misleading name. The "pig" part likely comes from the squealing noises they make, which resemble those of piglets. As for "guinea," it might derive from the British coin of the same name, implying they were sold for its equivalent value. Another theory is that European sailors, associating distant Guinea with anything exotic, mistakenly applied the name to these South American rodents.

The koala is often called a "koala bear," but it’s not a bear at all. European settlers in Australia gave it this name because its round face and fluffy ears reminded them of bear cubs.

Koalas are, in fact, marsupials. Like kangaroos, they carry their young in pouches. The word koala comes from the Dharug language (an Aboriginal language of Australia) and is believed to mean "no water," referring to the koala's ability to survive on eucalyptus leaves with minimal water intake. Did you know? Eucalyptus leaves are low in nutrients and mildly toxic. As a result, koalas have a slow metabolism and sleep up to 20 hours a day.

Fireflies don’t handle fire. They do, however, possess the ability to produce light, a phenomenon called bioluminescence. This light creates the illusion of tiny flames flying through the night. No wonder they have been associated with magic and fascination for centuries.

Despite their name, fireflies aren’t flies—they’re beetles. They produce light through a chemical reaction in their abdomens, which they use to attract mates or communicate. In fact, ​​different firefly species flash in distinct rhythms to help them identify each other.

The first time you hear the term "prairie dogs," you might picture packs of dogs roaming freely across the prairies. In reality, these animals are rodents and belong to the ground squirrel family.

The name is believed to have been given by early European settlers due to their high-pitched sounds. Prairie dogs are capable of producing sophisticated and varied calls to communicate with one another, sometimes sounding like man’s best friend. The "prairie" part of their name comes from their habitat—vast grasslands and prairies across North America. These rodents are expert burrowers and typically live in small family groups called "coteries," where members groom and protect each other.

It’s not only that ladybugs aren’t all female—they aren’t truly bugs, either. Instead, they are a type of beetle. These round and colorful insects have been widely associated with good luck and fortune for centuries. The reason for this has to do with the story behind their nickname.

The name "ladybug" originated in the Middle Ages, when farmers prayed to the Virgin Mary for help with pests in their crops. The beetles, which helped control aphid populations, were called "Our Lady's birds" or "Our Lady's beetles," later shortened to "ladybirds" or "ladybeetles." Over time, much to the frustration of entomologists, this evolved into the popular term "ladybugs."