Category:
Overpriced Merchandise

Ocean-Aged Wine

Ocean Fathoms promised its customers truly superior wine (for the price of $500/bottle) based on its unique method of aging the wine: in the ocean. It dropped the wine bottles to the bottom of the Santa Barbara Channel and brought them up a year later. From its website:

The Santa Barbara Channel offers not only the perfect environment for the aging process of wine, but is sits in a rich sea-life transition zone, where cold arctic waters meet warmer waters from the equator providing more than 100 species of flora and fauna unique to this location. The combination of flora and fauna attracts an abundance of sea-creatures and sea-life which ultimately adorn our bottles.

It is also the interaction between the submerged wine cages and the set of special characteristics of the Channel Islands’ environment that gives Ocean Fathoms a superior product. We sourced the absolute best location on planet earth to age our superior wine.

One problem. It never got permits to do any of this. The Bureau of Alcoholic Beverage Control seized and destroyed 2,000 bottles of the wine.

I wonder if the ocean-aging actually made any difference. My guess is that it's just the latest wine-industry gimmick.

More info: Food & Wine

Posted By: Alex - Tue Aug 22, 2023 - Comments (5)
Category: Inebriation and Intoxicants, Overpriced Merchandise

Destroyed Baggy Jeans

We've posted about ripped jeans before. But these take the concept to a whole new level of grottiness.

You can purchase them via Bergdorf Goodman for only $2,450.



Posted By: Alex - Fri Mar 24, 2023 - Comments (7)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Denim

Sato Nishiki cherries

Recently a box of 40 Sato Nishiki cherries, grown in Yamagata, sold for close to $10,000. More info from SoraNews24.com:

On January 5, at Ota Market’s first wholesale auction of the year in Tokyo, produce wholesaler Funasho Group claimed the winning bid for Yamagata-produced premium Sato Nishiki cherries. 500 grams (1.1 pounds) of the fruit sold for its highest price ever–1.3 million yen (US$9,842), which is 100,000 yen higher than the winning bid last year.

That's $250 per cherry.

SoraNews24 also notes that, when they sampled some Sato Nishiki cherries, "our team of writers had trouble telling them apart from regular supermarket ones."

Posted By: Alex - Tue Jan 10, 2023 - Comments (4)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Fruit

Eco-washed organic denim with grass stains

Gucci is selling an "Eco washed organic denim overall" that comes with a "stained-like, distressed effect." AKA fake grass stains. Yours for only $1400.



Or you could get this Orange Tartan Cotton Long Smock Shirt. Only $2600!

Posted By: Alex - Thu Sep 24, 2020 - Comments (6)
Category: Fashion, Denim, Overpriced Merchandise

Banana duct-taped to wall

Artist Maurizio Cattelan’s latest piece, consisting of a banana duct-taped to a wall, sold recently for $120,000.

Gallery owner Emmanuel Perrotin defended the work by saying, “It looks like a joke, but step back and look at it again, and it becomes so much more.”

The new owner will receive a certificate of authenticity. However, they’ll also be expected to periodically replace the banana (and presumably the duct tape also). Which begs the question: what did they actually buy? The idea of a banana duct-taped to a wall, apparently.

I'm curious to know how long the owner will actually bother to replace the banana. Twenty years from now, will they still be replacing it every few days?

More info: artsy.net

Posted By: Alex - Sat Dec 07, 2019 - Comments (8)
Category: Art, Overpriced Merchandise, Bananas

The $4 million Photo

It actually sold for more than $4 million — $4,338,500, to be exact. It was taken by Andreas Gursky who titled it “Rhine II” because it shows a scene along the Rhine River. Its sale in 2011 made it (at the time) the most expensive photo in the world.

The pricetag astounded many people, since it kinda looks like a photo any amateur could and would take. Florence Waters, art critic for the Daily Telegraph, offered this defense of it:

For all its apparent simplicity, the photograph is a statement of dedication to its craft. The late 1980s, when Gursky shot to attention, was a time when photography was first entering gallery spaces, and photographs were taking their place alongside paintings. Photography “as art”, at the time, was still brave and new, and the simplicity of this image shows a great deal of confidence in its effectiveness and potential for creating atmospheric, hyper-real scenarios that in turn teach us to see - and read - the world around us anew. The scale, attention to colour and form of his photography can be read as a deliberate challenge to painting's status as a higher art form. On top of that, Gursky’s images are extraordinary technical accomplishments, which take months to set up in advance, and require a lot of digital doctoring to get just right.


Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 03, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Photography and Photographers

Champagne Vending Machine

In its latest annual gift catalog, Neiman Marcus is offering a champagne vending machine. It goes for a mere $35,000 — champagne not included.



Or, better idea, buy this vending machine on eBay for $1700, and put some champagne (or another beverage of your choice) in it.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 20, 2019 - Comments (6)
Category: Overpriced Merchandise, Alcohol

Nara’s Doodles

A painting by Japanese artist Yoshitomo Nara recently sold for $24.9 million at Sotheby’s Hong Kong. This has had an inflationary effect on the value of all his works, including some doodles that he drew ten years ago, on the spur of the moment, on various walls in the Manhattan bar Niagara, where he happened to be drinking. It’s now figured that the doodles are worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. More info: CNN






Posted By: Alex - Sat Oct 19, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Art, Overpriced Merchandise

The Meteor Bag

The latest offering from the brand Off-White is the Meteor Bag which has large holes in its sides, as if it’s been hit by meteors (or, perhaps, meteorites?). As a result, anything put into the bag will likely fall out.

The brand says that the bag is intended to be “unfunctional," and that it is, in fact, “challenging the concept of a bag itself.” What a relief someone is finally challenging the tyranny of functional bags!

The cost of the Meteor is a mere $1,665.

More info: vogue.com



Posted By: Alex - Mon Sep 30, 2019 - Comments (0)
Category: Fashion, Overpriced Merchandise

Black Binder Clip Pin

The latest ridiculously overpriced merchandise: a single, black binder clip, from designer Off-White, going for $95.

The designer describes it as a 'pin,' which implies that it's meant to be worn as a fashion accessory, rather than used to hold paper together. Perhaps that's the reason for the high cost!

Posted By: Alex - Wed Aug 14, 2019 - Comments (2)
Category: Fashion, Overpriced Merchandise

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Alex Boese
Alex is the creator and curator of the Museum of Hoaxes. He's also the author of various weird, non-fiction, science-themed books such as Elephants on Acid and Psychedelic Apes.

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Paul has been paid to put weird ideas into fictional form for over thirty years, in his career as a noted science fiction writer. He has recently begun blogging on many curious topics with three fellow writers at The Inferior 4+1.

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