SortStack #1634 — 2030-11-29

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A single supermarket tea bag $0.05

   Tea bags were popularized by accident: a New York merchant shipped samples in silk pouches, and customers dunked the whole pouch.

2. An Oscar statuette, if a winner ever sells it back to the Academy $1.00

   Since 1951, winners must offer their Oscar back to the Academy for exactly one dollar before selling it elsewhere — a rule that keeps statuettes off the open market.

3. A full tank of gas for a midsize car in the US $45

   About half the pump price of US gasoline is the crude oil itself — refining, distribution, and taxes split the rest.

4. The finest-known Mickey Mantle baseball card from his rookie era $12.6M

   The 1952 Topps card sold in 2022 became the most expensive piece of sports memorabilia ever — countless others were dumped in the ocean by Topps in the Fifties.

5. Paul Newman's own Rolex Daytona, sold at auction $17.8M

   The watch was a gift from his wife, engraved 'Drive Carefully Me.' Its 2017 sale made it the most expensive wristwatch ever auctioned at the time.

6. 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.

← All puzzles · Play today’s SortStack