SortStack #2327 — 2032-10-22

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. 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.

2. The Mercedes 300 SLR Uhlenhaut Coupe, the most expensive car ever sold $142M

   Mercedes had kept both existing cars for nearly 70 years before secretly auctioning one in 2022 — the buyer's identity and the car's location remain closely guarded.

3. Andy Warhol's 'Shot Sage Blue Marilyn' silkscreen $195M

   The series got its name when a performance artist walked into Warhol's studio in 1964 and shot a stack of Marilyn canvases with a revolver.

4. Lucasfilm and the Star Wars franchise, when Disney bought them $4.1B

   George Lucas took much of the 2012 payment in Disney stock and has donated billions toward education — Disney recouped the price within a few films.

5. 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.

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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