9 Pointlessly Expensive Items You Can Buy

By Dylan Moore, University of Arkansas

Some expensive stuff that people choose to spend their money on—jet skis and yachts, or really anything water-based—is pretty cool. But some things are weird ... and then some are just absurd.

1. A rock that looks like meat

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Currently for sale on eBay is a rock that looks like meat—like a cut of pork, maybe—and it can be yours for just $1,255,000! Buy it to impress your friends ... or trick them. Do whatever your heart desires with this meaty-looking rock!

2. Kanye West-designed shirt

Designer t-shirts can cost quite a bit of money. Sometimes it's because designers are using expensive fabric, which makes sense. Sometimes it's because of the designer: The more famous he is, the more expensive his shirts are. That also kind of makes sense. So you might be wondering why we’re saying that a shirt designed by Kanye West (really famous person) is “pointlessly” expensive. Let’s look at this shirt:

Color Lines

It’s just a plain white cotton t-shirt. That costs $120. Granted, it was created in partnership with high-end brand A.P.C. ("A.P.C. Kanye" is even silkscreened along the interior neckline) and is made of 100 percent Egyptian cotton, but still—this shirt isn't exactly reinventing the wheel. You can get one just like it for at least a hundred dollars less almost anywhere else.

3. Diamond contact lenses

MSNBC

One option available to those people with less than 20/20 vision—who also don't want to wear glasses or traditional (read: invisible) contacts—are these diamond contact lenses. "If your eyes are sparkling with diamonds, no one can look away,” says creator Chandrashekhar Chawan of Shekhar Eye Research. What will it cost to put this strange twinkle in your eye? A mere $15,000.

4. Million dollar fishing lure

BoingBoing

Fishing has traditionally been a somewhat minimalist endeavor, requiring just a pole, some line, and a lure. A cheap, cheap lure. Or, if you have a bit more money to throw around, you can instead procure a $1 million lure—made of three pounds of gold/platinum and encrusted with diamonds and rubies—that probably won’t work any better.

5. Toilet paper

Renova

If you think your butt deserves better than plain white toilet paper, you can buy TP in colors—black, blue, pink, purple, green, and more. The cheapest option is a two pack for $6. It isn’t near as much money as the other items on the list, but it’s crazy expensive compared to regular old plain toilet paper, which clocks in at under $1 per roll.

6. Parking spot

It's hard to put a price on a prime parking spot, but one thing's for sure: People are willing to pay for it. One space in San Francisco recently sold for $82,000, and two spots in Boston were auctioned off for $560,000.

7. Snoop digital pot sticker

CNET

Marijuana can be really expensive, so it might also stand to reason that other pot related items would be equally overpriced. And, as in the Kanye example, a famous person’s name being attached would logically raise the price, right? So it makes sense that people are paying just under $100 for digital pot stickers from Snoop Lion (via his app, Snoopify). That’s right, stickers. Well, not real stickers. Digital stickers.

8. Gold and diamond game boy

SlashGear

Game Boys were pretty great. But now that the classic handheld system is obsolete, getting one should be pretty cheap, right? Well, not if it happens to be covered in pieces of gold and diamond—that will cost you $25,000. Which is a bummer, because the gold and diamond is essential to the system's functionality. How can you play Pokemon Gold if the Game Boy isn’t covered in gold itself? It just doesn’t make any sense.

9. Gold plated staples

Luxuo

Want the tiny pieces of metal holding your papers together plated in gold? Like most things plated in gold, there is absolutely no reason for this. (And we’re pretty sure you could get staples spray painted gold and have the same effect.) Twenty-four of them will cost you $210.