The Most Ridiculous Things Wealthy People Have Ever Purchased

What do super-rich people buy when they already have a garage full of Lamborghinis, Ferraris, and Bugattis, plus several homes to call their own? Surreal everything, apparently. While you're wondering if you have enough money to splurge on a case of good beer rather than Natty Ice again, rich people are dropping major coin on just the weirdest stuff.

Think you're hard-core, rocking your plastic-diamond studded Affliction shirt at the club? You have nothing on Datta Phuge, a man from India who owned one of the world's most expensive shirts. Phuge's custom made threads were commissioned in 2013 and cost upward of $250,000, but this isn't some lightweight, breathable cotton with a fleck of gold here or there. The solid gold shirt weighs a hefty 6 pounds, and according to the UK's Mirror, the shirt took "a team of 15 goldsmiths two weeks to make working 16 hours a day creating and weaving the gold threads."

Of course, no outfit's complete without some accessories. Do you think Phuge is going to wear a plastic Casio calculator watch with his gold shirt? With the leftover materials (and by materials, we mean solid gold) the shirt came with a pair of matching wrist cuffs and rings.

Why did Phuge want a pure gold shirt? He told the Mirror, "I know I am not the best-looking man in the world, but surely no woman could fail to be dazzled by this shirt?" Yeah, we're going to guess even with a gold shirt, a lot of women wouldn't swipe right. As Notorious B.I.G. put it, "Mo' money, mo' problems," and in Phuge's case, it was "gold shirt, massive target." In 2016, Phuge was beaten to death by 12 men over a money dispute. It wasn't revealed if he was wearing the shirt at the time of his death.

When we're young, we tend to not make the best choices. Now, if you're young and rolling in dough, you're probably going to make a few financial decisions that definitely aren't the best.

Back in 2011 when he was only 17, newly anointed rich-person Justin Bieber dropped some major cash on a custom piece of jewelry with 14-carat gold and 12-carats of white diamonds and multi-colored rubies. It featured Family Guy's Stewie Griffin.

Beverly Hills jeweler Jason Arasheben designed the piece with Justin and said, "Justin had a specific vision for how he wanted it to look." Any fan of Family Guy could look at pictures of it from Hollywood Life and tell you that there's nothing special about the design. It's just early-era "I want to kill Lois and victory will be mine!" Stewie with his arms folded. Instead of buying a well-equipped Toyota Camry, the Baby Bieber bought a necklace that he rarely even wore.

There's no word on if he pawned it or if it's sitting in a box gathering dust inside of a store unit. Word to the wise: if you're going to have a piece of bling in tribute to a cartoon character, go for something timeless like Bugs Bunny or even Bart Simpson.

The late king of Pop might have owned the publishing rights to the Beatles' entire song catalog, but he didn't literally have a piece of one of the members of the Fab Five, now did he? But in 2011, Canadian dentist Michael Zuk purchased a discolored molar removed from John Lennon's mouth at an auction for $31,200. The tooth had been given to Lennon's housekeeper, Dorothy "Dot" Jarlett, back in the 1960s after a trip to the dentist to get it removed.

Zuk's reason for buying the tooth? He wants to clone Lennon, of course. Zuk told Newsweek of his slightly creepy plans in 2014 and said that he was hoping he would be able to clone Lennon within five years. Why does this sound like the plot of a horror movie that nobody would want to see?

If you just so happen to not be up on the trends when it comes to designer purses and you think a bag is just a bag, then you haven't seen the Hermes Birkin bag. A regular run-of-the-mill Birkin bag is a status symbol like no other. Thousands of women would not only give up hot yoga and sipping Rose for five years but would gladly sell their firstborn for a Birkin, which start at around the $7,000 mark. But the Birkins you see on the shoulders of Park Avenue elites are nothing in comparison to a blinged out one.

In May 2016, a white Himalayan crocodile leather Birkin bag with 18-carat gold and diamond encrusted hardware sold at a Christie's auction in Hong Kong to an unnamed private collector in Asia for $300,168, making it the most expensive handbag ever purchased at an auction.

So what makes this Birkin the best? Two years prior to the auction, Vogue interviewed Jane Finds, an elite handbag dealer, about the prized purse. Finds said that the bag was originally "offered to a highly respected VIP client," and the bag contains over 200 diamonds for a total of 8.2 carats, and the lock has an additional 40 diamonds coming in at 1.65 carats. Before it was purchased by the anonymous bidder, the Birkin had a listing of $432,000, so this fashionista got a great deal!

If you have the money, this would be the perfect gift for your elderly relative who switches between Fox News and the Weather Channel all day. Alan Rowley won a decent lottery jackpot of £1.9 million in the UK and splurged on a state-of-the-art weather station located in his backyard.

The Nottingham Post said that Rowley tossed down £20,000 to build the station. He told the UK newspaper in 2015, "I always had a passing interest in the weather like most people have, I just had the idea of being able to record it so I can plan ahead." No word if the locals prank call Rowley asking if it's "raining men."

Before the millionth installment in the Fast and the Furious franchise, there was Steve McQueen. Back in 1971, after filming Bullitt, McQueen wanted to up the ante when it comes to car chase flicks. Le Mans was just that, 106 minutes of pure racing, and the star of the film wasn't just McQueen but rather the custom 1968 Ford GT40 whipping around the track for the majority of the movie.

Back in 2012, the original Ford GT40, completely restored, hit the auction block at RM Auctions in Pebble Beach, California. According to the folks at Top Gear, the baby blue GT40 was sold for $11 million. For $11 million, you could supply every person in Sweden with something on the McDonald's Dollar Menu, have enough cash to handle the tax, and still be able to buy an Aston Martin DB9.

Abraham Lincoln is one of our nation's most important figures, so a history buff with a nicely padded wallet (and perhaps a Swiss bank account) would certainly spend some bucks on an artifact from The Great Emancipator. If you're an Honest Abe fan, you can purchase his signature from the comfort of your couch for over $218,000. Don't have the cash for that? You would have to go back in time, but you could have bought a portrait negative of Lincoln at an auction in 2012.

As reported by Antique Trader, a photo negative of the last sitting portrait of Lincoln sold at a Cincinnati auction for $32,250, the price of a pre-owned Lincoln Navigator. Remember though, this is just a negative. Try going to your local photo shop (if you can find one) with a glass negative from 1865 and see if you can get it developed. It isn't going to happen.

You might think you're living the life with that timeshare at a resort in Cabo you got sucked into buying, but the rich are gobbling up their own private islands for their vacation destinations. And then what if island living isn't for you? Why not just buy an entire town, right on eBay?

Bridgeville, California, has been purchased and sold multiple times by folks with the financial means to play real-life Monopoly. The mountain town in Humboldt County roughly 260 miles north of San Francisco landed on eBay in 2002. It sold for $1.78 million. Not bad for having your own zip code and post office. The original buyer backed out of the deal, and Bruce Krall picked it up for the nice price of $700,000. In piece published by NBC in 2006, Krall said about the town, "I spent a lot of money and a lot of effort cleaning it up."

Bridgeville was put on the online auction site again that same year. The New York Times explained that the town, which has a population of about 30, fell into limbo after the sale. A 25-year-old entertainment manager who bought it for $1.25 million committed suicide shortly after his purchase. Hey, at least your timeshare is stress-free!

Having a Cheeseburger in Paradise and pint of Landshark Lager will probably run you around $20 at one of Jimmy Buffett's Margaritaville restaurants, but if you want to have lunch with a different Buffett, that's going to cost you a hell of a lot more than that. Billionaire Warren Buffett auctions off a lunch with him every year to benefit Glide, an organization located in San Francisco that offers food, shelter, and other services for those who are homeless or battling substance abuse. Back in 2016, the winning bid was from an anonymous individual for $3.46 million.

Fortune magazine revealed that the highest bidder was a woman who dined with Buffett and seven of her friends at the famed blue blood steakhouse, Smith & Wollensky. We know it's for charity, but here's hoping that boss lady and her friends could feast on several prime ribs, a few dozen oysters, and enough bowls of sautéed spinach to make Popeye sick of the stuff.

If you ever get to meet philanthropist, Microsoft founder, and uber-rich person Bill Gates, you probably wouldn't want to bring up the Zune in your conversation. It's a safe bet to instead discuss what you've recently read, because most likely, Gates has read it too. Gates reads roughly 50 books a year, and while you look at your bookshelf and see titles such as Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the 2003 Guinness Book of World Records, and a paperback of the Great Gatsby you haven't opened since high school, Bill Gates has the original copy of one of the most important texts ever created.

In 1994, Bill Gates purchased Leonardo da Vinci's Codex Leicester, a journal handwritten by the Italian genius from 1506 to 1510. He became the sole owner all for the low price of $30.8 million, making it the most expensive book ever sold. Gates didn't just keep it for himself. He had the ancient text scanned into a digital format, and the pages were available as a screensaver on Windows 95. But most people probably didn't know that because everyone used Flying Toasters as their screensaver instead.