5 Rare Things That Sold for Shocking Prices at Auction
Written by
Nicole Spector
Edited by
Zuri Anderson
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We all have our passions and hobbies, and if we had endless amounts of money to spend on sheer stuff, along with the space to store it, we’d likely go buck wild buying all kinds of collectibles and memorabilia just to be able to say “I own that.” Some of us who live pretty frugally may even save up to splurge on a rare vintage toy or movie prop. But generally, the world of expensive auctions is reserved for the ultra-wealthy.
GOBankingRates highlighted five rare things that have sold at shocking prices at auction. Some are bona fide collectibles while a couple are pretty weird celebrity memorabilia that may make you shudder and think, “You couldn’t pay me to buy that!”
A ‘The Hulk’ Stretch Toy Figure By Marvel
- Winning bid: $5,210
On Jul. 26, 2025, a stretch toy figure of Marvel’s The Hulk sold at Excalibur Auctions, in Kings Langley, Hertfordshire for £3,900 (about $5,210). It’s considered a highly rare stretch toy and reportedly one of only 30 in existence today. The toy was issued in 1979.
It’s not unusual for rare collectible toys to fetch a ton of money at auction, but a winning bid this high is noteworthy. Jonathan Torode of Excalibur Auctions said the sale “set a UK auction record for a figure of its kind,” BBC reported.
A Toilet That Once Belonged To John Lennon
- Winning bid: $14,740
We warned you that this list gets a little weird, and this particular item is the main reason we said that. John Lennon, one of the most influential singer-songwriters of the past 100 years, was, like all of us, someone who used toilets.
One porcelain lavatory that belonged to him in Tittenhurst Park in Berkshire, England, where he lived from 1969 to 1971, was sold at auction in 2010 for 9,500 pounds, or $14,740, according to Reuters. That’s equivalent to $21,730 in 2025 dollars.
Queen Victoria’s Underwear
- Winning bid: $16,300
Okay, only one more super weird one on this list: Queen Victoria’s knickers. A pair sold for $16,300 at an auction in 2015, per Town & Country. That’s about $22,000 in 2025. The undies were made of white cotton and sported a 45-inch waistband. An English collector bought them and chose, wisely perhaps, to remain anonymous.
A Violin Played on The Titanic
- Winning bid: $1.7 million
If you’re a Titanic buff, or even if you just saw the blockbuster “Titanic,” you may recall, among the memorable details of the megaship’s final moments, that the eight-piece band kept playing. Among that octet was Wallace Hartley, bandleader and violinist. His body was recovered days after the Titanic went down.
The violin he’d played was strapped to his back. One hundred years later, in 2013, that violin sold at auction in under 10 minutes for $1.7 million, or $2.4 million in 2025 dollars, CNN reported.
A Super Mario Bros. Video Game
- Winning bid: $2 million
Original Nintendo (NES) video games were not inexpensive when they were first issued in the mid-1980s. According to GameSpot, a single video game cartridge would set you back around $40 to $50. Today, that’d be around $120 to 150.
But, ah, if only we’d known just how dirt cheap that sum was compared to how much these games — now considered collectibles — can go for now.
In August 2021, a vintage Super Mario Bros. video game sold for $2 million, per The New York Times. That was only four years ago, but inflation has already worked its dark magic. Two million dollars in 2021 is worth close to $2.5 million today.
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