People Share The Most Outrageously Expensive Thing They've Ever Seen In Person

Wrist Bling

A 12 year old Russian kid who came to stay at a 'summer camp' I worked at, that has a £64,000 Rolex. We later found out that his '14 year old cousin' was actually his 28 year old body guard, and he was the son of a Russian diplomat. All around nice kid, though!

LeaveNoStonedUnturn

The Lewrk

The set designs for fashion shows. When I was working as a scenic carpenter I was always amazed at the amount of money spent on scenery that will go right into the trash for events that last 30 minutes to a couple of hours. We covered an empty warehouse floor in Manhattan with something like 50,000 square feet of beveled oak boards in one instance. Material costs aside, we had a crew of around 20 guys making at minimum $25/hr working for days around the clock to make it happen.

ralph_hopkins

In a Gloved Hand

The Patek Philippe Grandmaster Chime in steel at an "Only watch" showing in London. All the big watch companies do a one-off for the charity auction, and Patek usually only do watches in precious metals. A grand complication in steel is truly a one-off. It sold for 31 million Swiss Francs (close to 35M USD).

I actually held it in my (gloved) hand.

Salty_Paroxysm

Art

The CEO of my husband's company years back held a christmas party at this house (at the time, the company was a start up and there was maybe 20 employees). He had original Picasso art work on his walls. I have no idea how much they were actually worth, but I thought that was pretty cool.

ToastedMaple

Ships Ahoy! 

My sister used to work on superyachts. I'd go visit her every now and again and stay on the boat during the off-season (in crew quarters). This was about half a billion euros worth of boat.

And it was pretty damn fancy. It had glass flooring and staircases, that turned opaque if you stood on them so people couldn't look up your skirt, all the usual fancy boat crap like a spa and gym and movies that hadn't even been released at the cinema yet.

pocketfullofuranium

Days of Luthier

Years ago, I apprenticed as a luthier. The shop I worked in was almost entirely guitar repair, and one day a woman came in with a violin. She said it was her grandfather's (or maybe great grandfather's? I can't recall), and he had played in the Detroit symphony. It was obvious that the fingerboard had been replaced at some point, and the instrument was really old. Like, REALLY old. My boss knew a guy who specialized in violins, so he drove a couple hours to have him take a look at it. The guy told him to get it out of our shop immediately and send them to a specialist in Chicago.

He said it was early to mid 1700's, and was an exceptional instrument. Everyone has heard of Stradivarius violins, but not many people have heard of Guarneri, his rival. Apparently, there are still a few "lost" Guarneri violins out there, and this guy thought that this was one of them. My boss trusted this guy, and I trusted my boss (he has toured as the personal guitar tech for the like of Kenny Rogers, Big & Rich, Robert Randolph, etc.), so we called this lady up, told her where to go, and gave it back to her.

We didn't want to get her hopes up too high just in case the guy was wrong, and I think she decided not to look into it further (I was under the impression that a trip to Chicago was not financially feasible). I'll never know if I held a real Guarneri or not, but if I did, I held a $10,000,000+ violin.

_Dolemite_

When at Harrod's....

Outside of the Crown Jewels and art museums, I went to Harrod's and saw a chandelier worth £50,000.

Edit: Some people are taking this quite literally. To be clear, yes, of course I've seen more expensive items, hence the Crown Jewels. This wasn't a grand hall chandelier. This was something you could hang over a standard dining room table.

I Hear a Symphony

My high school orchestra teacher (who is also concert master for the Arkansas Symphony) was loaned a $12 million Stradivarius anonymously for an upcoming performance. I wasn't allowed to touch it, but I got a solid look at it, as well as heard it from three feet away.

GalacticExpress

In Diamonds....

A freshly drafted NFL rookie stayed at a hotel I worked at and partied a little too hard. When checking out he left over 100K in jewelry in the room. I was tasked with going and getting it and securing it till someone from his posse could come get it. I wore it for a few hours for fun.

Heavy AF and so freakin' shiny. A bracelet that was wider than the biggest watch covered in diamonds, and a chain that went past my sternum and probably 1/2in in thickness also completely encrusted in diamonds.

Thrilling1031

Dive In

I went to a party at a pool house when I was a teenager just the pool house was 4,000 sq ft. The kid's grandfather invented sheetrock.

Kodil2019