10 great ideas that were sold for a penny

Brilliant ideas very often do not seem to be something exceptional at the moment of their appearance. History knows cases when people in an effort to earn money sold their ideas literally for a penny, and after a while they brought their new owners very solid profits. In our review, ten of the most famous ideas that were bought for a penny, and earned millions on them.

The poem" The Raven " by Edgar Allan Poe tells the story of a man to whom a raven flew while he was grieving for the lost beloved. At first, Poe wanted to publish the poem in his friend's magazine, but was refused. After that, he sold The Raven to The American Review for $ 9.

The poem received instant recognition and fame. It was reprinted in periodicals all over 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 with the poem was sold for $ 662,500. Poe lived in poverty all his life and died almost penniless.

Walter Hunt is a mechanic from New York, known for many inventions. He owns patents for fountain pens, knife sharpeners, rifles, streetcar bells, a kitchen stove, an ice pick, a sewing machine, a street sweeper, a nail-making machine, and dozens of other inventions.

To pay off a $ 15 debt to his friend, Hunt decided to come up with something useful, for which he would be paid quickly. He came up with the idea of an ordinary pin, the patent for which he sold on April 10, 1849, to WR Grace for $ 400. The inventor returned $ 15 to a friend, and WR Grace earned millions.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Orchestra is the eighth studio album by The Beatles. It came out with a cover designed by the famous British pop artist Peter Blake and his wife Yann Haworth. 

The cover art is essentially a collage of many famous historical figures surrounding the members of The Beatles. Blake and Haworth were each paid 100 pounds (approximately $ 280) for their services.

The album became legendary, as well as its cover art. It has sold approximately 32 million copies worldwide, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time. The cover art was recognized as one of the best music album releases of all time.

In 1895, cough syrup manufacturers Pearl and Mae White of New York came up with a way to turn powdered gelatin into a delicious and commercially viable product by adding fruit-flavored syrups. Their delicious product, consisting of 88 percent sugar, they called "jelly".

Pearl and May White purchased a long-unused patent for powdered gelatin from Peter Cooper and decided to commercialize the jelly. But the White marketing people were 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 totaled almost $ 500 million.

The tune "James Bond" was originally written by Monty Norman for the first film in the series, "Doctor Know", in 1962. A film company that didn't 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 know in 50 years. Barry was paid 250 pounds (approximately $ 700) for his work, and Monty Norman received more than $ 1 million in royalties.

Pharmacist John Pemberton created the first Coca-Cola formula in 1886. The drink, which was marketed as a tonic for the brain and nervous system, began to be sold in pharmacies in Atlanta in May of the same year. It cost $ 0.05 a bottle, and Pemberton managed to earn only $ 50 in the first year of sales.

Desperate for money due to illness and morphine addiction, Pemberton sold the ownership of the drink to other investors for $ 1,484. These investors, in turn, sold the patent to astute businessman Asa Candler for $ 2,300. Candler became the sole owner of Coca-Cola and founded the company of the same name. He eventually sold his company in 1919 for $ 25 million, the equivalent of $ 341 million in today's money.

The Red Vineyard is an oil painting by Vincent Van Gogh in November 1888. This painting was the only work that Van Gogh sold in his lifetime. It was purchased by the Belgian artist Anne Bosch in 1890 for 400 francs (approximately $ 1,600 in today's money).

Like 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, The 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 Anne Bosch for 10,000 francs in 1906.

In the early 80s, James Cameron was an unknown director with no money and no housing, he spent the night in his car or on a friend's couch. At this time, he wrote a promising script called "Terminator", which he offered to many companies in Hollywood.

No one wanted to collaborate with the aspiring director, with the exception of Gail Anna Hurd of New World Pictures. She agreed to let Cameron direct the film if he would sell 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.

In 1982, a Spider-Man fan from Illinois named Randy Schueller created a storyline for an upcoming contest run by Marvel Comics. As an accessory to his story, Schueller designed a new suit for Spider-Man (black, except for the emblem on the chest, which was a radical change from the traditional red and blue suit that had been in use for 20 years).

A few months later, Schueller received a letter from Marvel editor-in-chief Jim Shooter: he liked the idea and offered to buy it for $ 220. Schueller happily agreed to such a deal. Subsequently, his story did not go to print, but in May 1984, Marvel presented a new Spider-Man costume. Only the third part of the blockbuster film, released in 2007, collected almost $ 900 million worldwide.

Having had an unforgettable experience during his time as a prospector in the Klondike, Jack London wrote the novel "The Call of the Ancestors". The novel was first published in January 1903 in four issues of the Saturday Evening Post, which paid $ 750 to London for the non-exclusive rights. 

That same year, London sold the full rights to Macmillan Publishers for $ 2,000. This, at the time, was a substantial sum that many writers could only dream of. The book was released on July 1, 1903 and cost $ 1.5. It sold 10,000 copies on its first day. By 1914, 500,000 books had been sold in the United States, and by 1964, six million. Neither London nor its descendants were paid a cent.