SortStack #283 — 2027-03-19

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. One standard LEGO brick, on average $0.10

   LEGO bricks are molded to a tolerance of four thousandths of a millimeter — and bricks made in 1958 still click with bricks made today.

2. A new big-budget video game at launch $70

   Adjusted for inflation, games are cheaper than ever: a Nintendo cartridge in the early Nineties often cost the equivalent of well over a hundred of today's dollars.

3. A whole wheel of Parmigiano Reggiano cheese $1.3K

   Italian banks accept Parmigiano wheels as loan collateral — one regional bank keeps hundreds of thousands of wheels aging in climate-controlled vaults.

4. A Peloton Bike+ exercise bike $2.5K

   During the pandemic Peloton was briefly worth more than Ford. Its stock later fell more than 90% from the peak as gyms reopened.

5. 'Salvator Mundi,' the painting attributed to Leonardo da Vinci $450.3M

   The most expensive artwork ever sold was bought for about $1,000 at a 2005 estate sale. Since the 2017 auction, it has not been publicly seen.

6. The entire Apollo Moon program, in the dollars of its day $25.4B

   At its peak, Apollo employed about 400,000 people and consumed more than 4% of the US federal budget — per landing, each Moon mission cost less than a modern aircraft carrier.

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