10 great ideas that were sold for pennies
Brilliant ideas very often at the moment of their appearance do not seem to be something exceptional. History knows cases when people, in an effort to earn money, sold their ideas literally for a penny, and after a while they brought very solid profits to their new owners. In our review, there are a dozen of the most famous ideas that were bought for a penny and earned millions on them.
(Total 9 photos)
Poem by Edgar Allan Poe
1. Edgar Allan Poe.
The poem "The Raven" by Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a man who was visited by a raven while he was mourning the loss of his beloved. At first, Poe wanted to have the poem printed in his friend's magazine, but was refused. After that, he sold The Crow to The American Review for $9. The poem received instant recognition and fame. It was reprinted in periodicals throughout the country and made Poe famous. Today, The Raven is one of the most famous poems in history. The number of reprints, books and even films based on the poem is incalculable. In 2009, one of the copies of the first book of the poem sold for $662,500. Edgar Allan Poe lived in poverty all his life and died almost penniless.
safety pins
2. Safety pins are a half-million invention.
Walter Hunt is a mechanic from New York, known for many inventions. He owns patents for fountain pens, knife sharpeners, rifles, tram bells, a kitchen stove, an ice pick, a sewing machine, a street sweeper, a nail machine, and dozens of other inventions. To pay off his friend's $15 debt, Hunt decided to come up with something useful that would get him paid quickly. He came up with the idea of a common pin, for which he sold the patent on April 10, 1849 to the W. R. Grace Company for $400. The inventor returned $15 to a friend, and WR Grace made millions.
"Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"
3. Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band is the eighth studio album by The Beatles. It came out with a cover designed by famous British pop artist Peter Blake and his wife Yann Haworth. The cover is essentially a collage of many famous historical figures surrounding the members of The Beatles. Blake and Haworth were each paid £100 (approximately US$280) for their services. The album became legendary, as did its cover. It has sold approximately 32 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. The cover has been acclaimed as one of the best album releases of all time.
Jelly
4. Jelly is a marketer's dream.
In 1895, New York City cough syrup makers Pearl and Mae White figured out how to turn powdered gelatin into a palatable and commercially viable product by adding fruit-flavored syrups. Their delicious product, consisting of 88 percent sugar, they called "jelly". They purchased a long-unused powdered gelatin patent from Peter Cooper and decided to commercialize the jelly. But the Whites' marketers turned out bad, and they sold the jelly patent to their neighbor Frank Woodward for $450 in 1899. Already in 1906, the annual sales of jelly reached 250 thousand dollars. In 2013, jelly sales were almost $500 million.
James Bond theme track
5. James Bond was originally composed by Monty Norman for the first film in the series, Dr. No, in 1962. The film company, which did not like the sound, hired composer John Barry to change the tune. Barry added elements of rock and jazz to it, increasing the overall tempo of the melody. The result was a hit that everyone will recognize in 50 years. Barry was paid £250 (approximately $700) for his work, while Monty Norman received over $1 million in royalties.
Coca Cola
6. Coca-Cola: from medicine to popular drink.
Pharmacist John Pemberton created the first Coca-Cola formula in 1886. The drink, which was positioned as a tonic for the brain and nervous system, began to be sold in Atlanta pharmacies in May of that year. It cost $0.05 a bottle, and Pemberton only managed to earn $50 in its first year of sales. Desperate for cash due to illness and morphine addiction, Pemberton sold ownership of the drink to other investors for $1,484. These investors in turn sold the patent to shrewd businessman Asa Candler for $2,300. Candler became the sole owner of Coca-Cola and founded a company of the same name. He ended up selling his company in 1919 for $25 million, equivalent to $341 million in today's money.
Painting "Red Vineyard" by Van Gogh
7. "Red Vineyard". Vincent Van Gogh.
The Red Vineyard is an oil painting by Vincent van Gogh in November 1888. This painting was the only work Van Gogh sold in his lifetime. It was purchased by the Belgian artist Anna Bosch in 1890 for 400 francs (approximately $1,600 in today's money). Like Edgar Poe, Van Gogh lived in poverty and died tragically. He did not earn recognition during his lifetime, but became famous after his death. Now his paintings are sold for tens of millions of dollars. Van Gogh's most expensive painting, "Portrait of Dr. Gachet", sold for a record $82.5 million in 1990 ($150 million in today's money). The Red Vineyard was sold by Anna Bosch for 10,000 francs in 1906.
The Terminator is one of Hollywood's best ideas
8. In the early 80s, James Cameron was an unknown director with no money and no home, he spent the night in his car or on a friend's couch. During this time, he wrote a promising script called The Terminator, which he offered to many companies in Hollywood. But no one wanted to collaborate with the budding director, with the exception of Gale Anna Hurd of New World Pictures. She agreed to let Cameron direct the film if he sold all the rights to it for just $1. Cameron may have lost ownership of The Terminator, but the move made him famous and the highest paid director in the world.
Venom (Spider-Man)
9. Spiderman is one of the most profitable superheroes.
In 1982, an Illinois Spider-Man fan named Randy Schueller created a storyline for an upcoming competition run by Marvel Comics. As an accessory to his story, Schueller designed a new suit for Spider-Man (black except for the chest emblem, a drastic change from the traditional red and blue suit that had been in use for 20 years). A few months later, he received an email from Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter, who liked the idea and offered to buy it for $220. Schueller gladly agreed to such a deal. Subsequently, his plot did not go to print, but in May 1984, Marvel presented a new Spider-Man costume. Only the third part of the blockbuster film, which was released in 2007, collected almost $900 million worldwide.
Jack London's The Call of the Wild novel
10. Having an unforgettable experience during the period when he was a prospector in the Klondike, Jack London wrote the novel "The Call of the Wild". The novel was first published in January 1903 in four issues of the Saturday Evening Post, which paid $750 to London for non-exclusive rights. That same year, London sold the full rights to Macmillan Publishers for $2,000. It was at that time a solid amount, which many writers could only dream of. The book was released on July 1, 1903 and cost $1.50. On the first day, 10,000 copies were sold. By 1914, 500,000 books had been sold in the United States, and by 1964, six million. Neither London nor his descendants were paid a cent.