$1 → $1M · 5 tiers

Bottle of water.

From the 50¢ corner-shop bottle to a single bottle of glacial water that costs more than most people earn in a year.

Corner-shop PET bottle

Material: PET (polyethylene terephthalate), 500 ml, mass-produced label, sourced from a municipal spring under 'Pure Mountain Source' branding that may or may not be real.
Function: Drink it. Refill it once. Throw it away. Feel guilty.
History: PET bottles for water arrived in the late 1970s; the global bottled-water industry was a $5 million curiosity in 1980 and is a $300 billion juggernaut today. Made with scrap but with soul — the bottle in your hand has a 1-in-3 chance of being recycled.
What bumps the price: Reusable HDPE bottle instead of single-use (+$2), filtered tap water in a glass bottle (+$3 marketing tax), being on a runway flight (+$5).

Material: Norwegian artesian water, frosted glass cylinder bottle, 800 ml, sourced from a single underground aquifer in Iveland, Norway.
Function: Drink it slowly. Display the bottle. Refill it with tap water and feel like a fraud.
History: Voss launched in 1998 as a luxury rebrand of perfectly ordinary spring water. The bottle was designed by a former Calvin Klein creative director. The water itself is mineralogically unremarkable; the magic is the glass.
What bumps the price: Sparkling version (+$30), fancy restaurant markup (+$50), being on the table at a Michelin-starred dinner (+priceless).

Material: Hand-blown Italian crystal bottle, 750 ml, water blended from Iceland, France, and the Pacific Fiji, with a touch of dissolved 5N pure gold dust for visual sparkle.
Function: Drink it once for the story. Keep the empty bottle on the mantelpiece forever.
History: Designed by Italian artist Fernando Altamirano in 2010 as a tribute to Amedeo Modigliani. Modigliani's portraits sell for $170 million; the bottle is meant to evoke his elongated forms. The gold flecks settle to the bottom.
What bumps the price: Limited 50-bottle run with serial numbers (+$300), signed by Altamirano on the base (+$400), 1.5L magnum (+$600).

Material: Hand-cut crystal bottle, 750 ml of micro-filtered Californian water, encrusted with 250 black-and-white diamonds totalling 12 carats around the neck.
Function: Bottle service at three Las Vegas clubs. Photograph. Drink in front of phones, never alone.
History: Released in 2015 as part of Beverly Hills 90H₂O's 'Diamond Edition' run of 600 bottles. Buyers were almost exclusively poker tournament champions and rappers. The water is sourced from a single municipal supply; the diamonds are real.
What bumps the price: Coloured fancy diamonds instead of white (+$4,000), engraved with the buyer's initials in 24 K gold (+$2,500), full case of 6 (+$50,000).

Material: 1.25-litre 24K solid-gold bottle in the form of a Modigliani sculpture. Water from Iceland, France, Fiji, and a glacial source in the Antarctic, with 5 mg of edible 22-carat gold dust.
Function: On display in a Mexico City restaurant since 2010 — a single bottle, sold to a private collector who keeps it sealed in a vault.
History: Listed in Guinness World Records as the most expensive bottled water on Earth ($60K per bottle when launched; the full-edition 1.25L flagship sold for $1.35M in 2024). Each bottle takes a master goldsmith four months to fabricate. The water is symbolic; the bottle is the artwork.
What bumps the price: Provenance from the original 2010 launch (+$300K), signed by the creator + a working artist's certificate (+$120K), a custom display vitrine with humidity control (+$80K).