SortStack #2978 — 2034-08-04

By price · Order from cheapest to most expensive.

1. A new hardcover bestseller $30

   Hardcovers exist partly as price discrimination: publishers sell to eager fans at a premium first, then release the cheaper paperback a year later.

2. 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.

3. A McLaren F1 supercar at its original Nineties sticker price $815K

   The engine bay was lined with real gold foil for heat reflection. The same cars now trade for over $20 million — among history's best car investments.

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. A Boeing 737 MAX 8 airliner at list price $120M

   Airlines almost never pay list price — discounts of around half are standard, which is why Boeing eventually stopped publishing its price sheet entirely.

6. Pixar, when Disney bought it $7.4B

   The 2006 deal made Steve Jobs Disney's largest individual shareholder — he had bought Pixar from George Lucas two decades earlier for about $10 million.

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