You have to put your money somewhere, and you could do worse than these crazy auction items
A solid-gold toilet
You may remember this splashy, irreverent work of art by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan when it debuted at New York’s Guggenheim Museum in 2016. The 18-carat, solid-gold working toilet, aptly—or annoyingly, depending on your perspective—named “America” sold at Sotheby’s in November 2025 for a cool $12 million. In an interesting turn of events, it had only one bidder, and the price was equal to the current price of gold, plus auction fees.
That’s probably A-OK with Cattelan, who shows up twice on this list of crazy auction items. As the Sotheby’s website asks, and Cattelan would likely agree, “Where does value end and irony begin?”
Titanic rescuer’s pocket watch
When the Titanic sank in the North Atlantic on April 15, 1912, thousands of pieces of art, dishes, jewelry and other artifacts went down with the ship and 1,500 passengers. But one piece of Titanic memorabilia wasn’t on the ship at all, though it has now become the most expensive Titanic item ever sold: an 18-carat-gold Tiffany & Co. watch given to the captain of the RMS Carpathia, who rushed to the rescue and managed to save 700 people.
The watch, which fetched nearly $2 million, was given to Captain Arthur Rostron by three Titanic widows, including John Jacob Astor’s wife Madeleine Astor, and features an engraved personal message to the captain. But this isn’t the only Titanic pocket watch to sell for millions—or even the only one this year. John Jacob Astor’s own personal watch, a 14-carat-gold Waltham that was recovered on his body a week after the ship sank, brought in $1.5 million when it was auctioned in April 2025 by the same auction house.
A banana taped to a wall
It’s hard to say what art is anymore. One may think of the “Mona Lisa,” while another might value, say, a banana duct-taped to a wall. We’re not being cute. That is literally what someone first bought at the Art Basel art fair in Miami in 2019.
Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan’s controversial piece, titled “Comedian,” sold for $120,000 that year, and since then, it’s been a wild ride for the humble nanner. Five years later, in 2024, the piece, which is seen as a commentary on the world of contemporary art, sold at Sotheby’s to cryptocurrency titan Justin Sun for $6.2 million. And to be clear, it’s not really the banana he bought, but a certificate of authenticity.
If you’re scratching your head right about now, as you should be, the certificate gives the buyer the ability to swap out, eat or even slap a totally different banana on a totally different wall whenever they want—and call it “Comedian.”
The last violin played on the Titanic
One of the most memorable tales from the tragic sinking of the Titanic is the eight-piece band that played until the end. Led by English musician Wallace Hartley, the band members played their instruments as the ship sank into the frozen waters of the Atlantic Ocean in an effort to help soothe scared passengers. More than a century later, in 2013, Hartley’s damaged violin was sold at an auction for $1.7 million in less than 10 minutes.
It is one of the most expensive artifacts that was actually on the doomed ship (after John Jacob Astor’s Waltham pocket watch), and is now is on display at the Titanic Belfast museum.
J.K. Rowling’s chair
Talk about a conversation starter! The chair that the author J.K. Rowling sat in as she wrote her first two Harry Potter books was sold at auction in 2016 for $394,000. The well-worn oak chair was accompanied by a letter from Rowling herself that read:
“Dear new-owner-of-my-chair / I was given four mismatched dining room chairs in 1995 and this was the comfiest one, which is why it ended up stationed permanently in front of my typewriter, supporting me while I typed out Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. / My nostalgic side is quite sad to see it go, but my back isn’t. / JK Rowling.”
John Lennon’s toilet
Imagine all the ways you can spend your money … and then think about this. One Beatles fan spent nearly $15,000 on a flowered porcelain toilet once owned by John Lennon. The luxe loo came from an English estate owned by Lennon and Yoko Ono. When Lennon had the toilet replaced, he told the builders “to put some flowers in it or something,” according to the auction catalog. The estate, Tittenhurst Park, was where Lennon recorded his legendary Imagine album and film. Hopefully, the toilet was as inspiring to its new owner!
Queen Victoria’s undies
And speaking of bathroom inspiration, cotton knickers owned by Queen Victoria (Queen Elizabeth’s great-great-grandmother) sold in 2015 for $16,300. Embroidered with her royal initials, “VR” for Victoria Regina, the undies were in pristine shape, having been wrapped in tissue and kept in a temperature-controlled room. The roomy drawers with a 45-inch drawstring waist started a run on her skivvies, and a few of Queen Victoria’s bloomers and clothes have gone to auction since. But these were extra special.
“On these particular knickers, there is a chevron section, which is where they were taken up slightly as Queen Victoria got older and essentially she shrunk in stature,” auctioneer Richard Edmonds stated. “That element got the collectors really excited, because you can then date them quite specifically to the last 10 years of her life.”
A lock of Elvis Presley’s hair
A hunka, chunka hair from the King of Rock and Roll, Elvis Presley, sold for $115,000 to an eager fan back in 2002. Saved from his barber, who also used to dye his sandy-blond hair jet black, the trimmings were kept in a plastic bag after the singer’s death in 1977—until they were sold for a king’s ransom.
Elvis fans can’t help falling in love with crazy auction items from the idol: Other big-ticket Elvis items sold at auction over the years were the white eyelet jumpsuit and cape he wore at his 1972 Madison Square Garden show (which went for $1,012,500), and one of his very first recordings of a song called “My Happiness,” which was bought by White Stripes musician Jack White.
Marilyn Monroe’s white dress
It was the dress that launched a thousand gasps. Marilyn Monroe’s iconic white halter dress, which she wore in The Seven Year Itch, sold in 2011 for an incredible $4.6 million. The dress—which was famously blown up while she stood over a subway grate—made Monroe a certified sex symbol.
It also made actress Debbie Reynolds some major bucks when she sold it. The late Reynolds, the iconic star of Singing in the Rain (and also the late Carrie Fisher’s mom), was a huge collector of vintage Hollywood gowns, and Marilyn’s made her a pretty penny.
Justin Timberlake’s leftover French toast
Years ago, a young band member from ‘NSync named Justin Timberlake was interviewed by the Z100 morning show in New York City when he left some of his uneaten French toast behind. The station’s DJ jokingly put two slices of it for sale on eBay, where the crazy auction item was sold to a teenager named Kathy Summers for $1,025.
When asked what she would do with the leftover and slightly burned toast, the teen fan said, “I’ll probably freeze-dry it, then seal it … then put it on my dresser.” A wise investment, indeed.
A dead shark in formaldehyde
Weird art always seems to sell well and big (see slide No. 2), and this piece by British contemporary artist Damien Hirst did both. Hirst is known for his obsession with death, as seen in his high-priced and macabre styles of art. In 2004, he sold a tiger shark preserved in formaldehyde, titled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living, for a reported $8 million. The 22-ton shark, which is obviously dead but scarily preserved, embodies life, death and just what its title aptly describes.
Albert Einstein’s theory on happiness
A Japanese bellboy received the tip of a lifetime when he made a delivery to physicist Albert Einstein in 1922. Einstein was in Tokyo on a book tour when he found out he’d won the Nobel Prize. Overwhelmed by the honor and attention, Einstein put some of his thoughts to paper, which he gave the bellboy when he couldn’t find change for a tip.
“A calm and modest life brings more happiness than the pursuit of success combined with constant restlessness,” Einstein wrote in German on a piece of hotel stationery. On the second paper, he wrote, “Where there’s a will, there’s a way.” The two papers, his take on happiness, sold at a 2017 auction in Israel for $1.56 million and $250,000, respectively.
A giant steel rabbit
And we’re back with some really expensive art. A 3-foot stainless steel rabbit created by the artist Jeff Koons in 1986 sold at auction in 2019 for the breathtaking price of $91 million. It went to Robert E. Mnuchin, an art dealer and the father of former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, and it set the world-record price for a work by a living artist.
The rabbit is considered one of the most iconic works of art of the 20th century, and a blow-up version of it appeared in the Macy’s Day parade in 2007. The work has influenced generations of artists, even Damien Hirst (of dead-shark fame). And on a funny side note, when Koons was deciding on what animal to sculpt a likeness of, he almost chose a pig. It seems like the bunny paid off.
Truman Capote’s ashes
The author of Breakfast at Tiffany’s and In Cold Blood certainly did love an adventure, and so maybe it’s not that big of a surprise that his ashes continue to have a life of their own. Housed in a Japanese wooden box, the writer’s remains belonged to Capote’s longtime friend Joanne Carson—ex-wife of the famed late-night talk-show host Johnny Carson—until her death in 2015. (Capote died in 1984.)
The ashes have had quite a ride, having been stolen once before and luckily returned, until they were finally sold for $45,000 in 2016 to an anonymous buyer who promised “that Truman will continue his adventures.”
Leonardo da Vinci’s Codex Leicester
While most people associate Leonardo da Vinci with his paintings, like the “Mona Lisa” and “The Last Supper,” da Vinci was also a scientist and engineer whose notes about inventions and thoughts on the planet (its origin and end) were captured in a journal titled the Codex Leicester. In 1994, Bill Gates purchased the journal for $30.8 million at auction, making it one of the most expensive books ever sold.
Da Vinci’s ideas and musings in the Codex are written in his famous mirrored cursive writing, and it’s currently on loan to museums and schools across the country. While $30 million might seem a fortune for a rare book, the most valuable thing ever sold at an auction is also a work by Leonardo da Vinci. In 2017, a painting titled “Salvator Mundi” sold for a hefty $450 million, and that record holds nearly 10 years later.
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Sources:
- Sotheby’s: “Maurizio Cattelan America”
- CBS News: “Gold pocket watch given to captain who rescued Titanic survivors sells for record price”
- AP News: “Duct-taped banana sells for $6.2 million at art auction”
- CNN: “Violin played as Titanic sank sells for $1.7 million”
- BBC: “‘Harry Potter’ chair sold for almost $400,000 at auction”
- Guardian: “Pants? Queen Victoria’s underwear sold for £12,000 at auction”
- Guinness World Records: “Most expensive hair sold at auction online”
- Hollywood Reporter: “Marilyn Monroe’s ‘Seven Year Itch’ Dress Sells for $4.6 Million”
- Arizona Daily Star: “Justin Timberlake’s leftover French toast”
- Guardian: “Damien Hirst shark that sold for about $8m is fourth 2017 work dated to 1990s”
- NPR: “Einstein’s Note on Happiness, Given to Bellboy in 1922, Fetches $1.6 Million”
- New York Times: “Jeff Koons ‘Rabbit’ Sets Auction Record for Most Expensive Work by Living Artist”
- Variety: “The True Story Behind Truman Capote’s Ashes Being Auctioned Off on ‘Feud’”
- New York Times: “Leonardo Notebook Sells for $30.8 Million”
