SortStack #815 — 2028-09-01

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. 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.

2. LEGO's giant Ultimate Collector Series Millennium Falcon set $850

   At over 7,500 pieces it is one of the largest LEGO sets ever sold — sealed originals of the 2007 version have resold for several times the new price.

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 new Rolex Submariner at retail $10.8K

   For years the waiting lists were so long that used Submariners sold above new ones — an inversion almost unheard of in luxury goods.

5. 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.

6. The James Webb Space Telescope $10B

   Webb's mirror is coated with about 48 grams of gold — roughly a golf ball's worth — spread across 18 hexagonal segments.

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