SortStack #388 — 2027-07-02

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A US Forever postage stamp $0.78

   Forever stamps never expire and stay valid even after rate hikes — buying sheets before an increase is one of America's tiniest investments.

2. A round-trip economy flight from New York to London $700

   In 1939, a one-way transatlantic ticket on Pan Am's flying boat cost $375 — several months of an average American salary at the time.

3. An iPhone Pro at launch $999

   The components inside an iPhone cost Apple roughly half the sticker price — the rest covers R&D, software, marketing, and famously healthy margins.

4. Alaska, as the United States paid Russia for it $7.2M

   The 1867 nominal price worked out to about two cents per acre. Critics called it 'Seward's Folly' — then gold and oil turned it into history's great bargain.

5. Mojang, the maker of Minecraft, when Microsoft bought it $2.5B

   Creator Markus 'Notch' Persson sold partly due to burnout, tweeting that he didn't want the responsibility — Minecraft went on to become the best-selling game ever.

6. Building the Large Hadron Collider at CERN $4.8B

   The LHC's 27 km ring is colder than outer space — its magnets sit at 1.9 kelvin — and it briefly held a section of the emptiest vacuum in the solar system.

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