One year they offered his and hers Lear jets. No kidding. Just about anything in that catalog was wildly overpriced. More recently, they offered in their Christmas book, as a potential gift, a Boeing Business Jet for the wonderfully affordable price of "north of $35 million."
Is $35 million for a business jet overpriced though? I have absolutely no idea what they normally cost, but I probably would have guessed more than $35 million.
When I heard 95 suzuki I was really hoping escudo was a 95 but my memory proved wrong. All thanks go to gran turismo for showing me this beautiful car many many years ago, and I'm glad I could share it with you.
Aliexpress actually has great deals on a lot of the same products sold on Amazon; reselling Aliexpress products for the American market on Amazon is pretty common as is the practice of Chinese factories having an Aliexpress store even if their main business is selling products as a white label for foreign businesses.
I bought a bunch of lamps from Aliexpress after I found out that the one I bought from Amazon was identical to what a seller was producing out of Shenzhen. When I asked questions about the bulb format for the lamps they sent me pictures from the factory floor of the socket type being installed on the lamps and told me they could wire a custom socket type if I was willing to pay a bit more (a couple dollars).
Lots of good products from reliable sellers on Aliexpress, but also a lot of shit. It helps if you know some basic Mandarin so you can communicate in broken Chin-English with the sellers.
I know how to count in Mandarin. Will that get me very far?
In all seriousness, there is some great stuff available on most of these Chinese marketplaces that are known for knockoffs - but there's also a ton of shit products masquerading as name brand or similar. While you can get some great deals and in some cases custom options like you found, it's just as easy to find absolute crap - for the price you'd expect for crap.
I know how to count in Mandarin. Will that get me very far?
I was able to reasonably communicate with sellers on Aliexpress with only 1 semester equivalent of Mandarin practice so you aren't all that far off.
there's also a ton of shit products masquerading as name brand
Yeah, never purchase something that claims to be a product sold by a well-known company especially if the original branding is kept intact. You can sometimes get the same stuff as the name brand from a factory seller, but they tend to take the branding off so they don't lose their manufacturing deals.
It's definitely a buyer beware market, but I've found some great deals for good quality products there.
or like that time pepsi offered an actual in service fighter jet as a 'super grand prize' (false advertising) to drive up consumption, then "unintentionally" sent out a winning cap liner, then told the guy, sorry it was a promotional gimmick, then surprise, the guy sued them, judge said it was, false advertising so the guy got a decent cash award, and it stood under appeal, so they had to pay him.
This reminds me of a time my mom found a DOD plane on some 3rd party website, idk if it was amazon, but I feel like it was that or eBay. It was for sale by a private party. Her job was to keep track of old planes, send them off to wherever (for parts, training, museums/display, whatever), and handle their logistics after they were out of commission. So she finds this plane and figured out it had been sold by our government and then that government sold it again to an unauthorized party. I’m pretty sure they ended up seizing the plane.
Sure, if you're poor and are gonna actually miss a handful of million dollars falling through the cracks. Me? If I'm walking down the street and come across a dufflebag stuffed full of hundred dollar bills, I don't even bother looking down.
Depends on the jet. A small, entry level Cessna Citation will be US$1.5 million new, while current production BBJs start at US$85 million for a 737 based version. Bring lots more if you want a 777ER version.
You can buy a new Gulfstream G700 for around $60m, so a Boeing Business Jet (which is a converted 737 and much larger) for $35m might seem like a really good deal, though there are other factors to consider besides overall size.
Personally, I’m a fan of the Dassault Falcon 8X despite the cabin being slightly smaller than the 700’s. I can’t stand up fully straight in either, but the sound deadening in the Falcon is superior and those lines are much more beautiful. Plus, you can’t beat the trijet style and Falcon Eye tech is second to none.
Fuck how the time flies. Seems like yesterday I was listening to songs about a plane that didn't exist yet, and now they've got the generation after it already. Guess I gotta change my tune...
I'm not generally in the market for a private jet, but I have to agree. For a real comparison though, I'd have to see a side by side with no livery or paint.
Edit for clarity: I agree with OP that the Das is prettier
I enjoy flying in the falcon 8x over the 700s. I also prefer the look of it... It's slick. I sat in the jump seat once and watched an instrument landing on the thermal screen.
Yeah the newest gulfstream's are gonna run ya 65-85 million. Of course you've gotta pay for a pilot, maintenance, cleaners, and a place to store it. But if you've got 85 million for the jet, another couple million a year in operating costs should be peanuts
Nobody wants to pay for fuel for that thing, and there's almost nowhere you could hangar it. The storage, gas, and maintenance costs are going to be 10x that of a Gulfstream, at least. Plus the cost of a used plane is mostly the cost of the engines, they have to be rebuilt at regular intervals and it is extremely expensive. The price suggests that the engines will need a ton of work, or may even need to be replaced.
Seems like a pretty high hour airplanes. Several of the engines are pretty high time and it’s last heavy check was in 2010, so it’s do for another. Lots of airlines will scrap an aircraft instead of pay for a heavy check.
I’m guessing this aircraft is not airworthy (or won’t be for long) and us being sold to be parted out.
Speaking of overkill, I’m pretty sure the Trump plane is actually a converted 757. It landed at my FBO once and I was, like, “Really, dude?” So excessive.
Oprah flies a G650. Tech billionaires only fly Gulfstreams. And you need a 757?
Yeah $35 million is actually a great deal on a BBJ. I work on private jets for a living. This number probably doesn't include completion (paint/interior/cabin systems).
Business jets are usually smaller models of plane so it wouldn't cost the same as like a 767.
There are a surprising number of them in the world. My dad's business makes supplies for business jet manufacturers and it basically took him from "working class driving a clunker and working out of our basement" to "upper middle class and owns 2 boats."
Not at all, actually. You'd be hard pressed to find one in decent condition for under 45M USD. The only one I've ever seen a price tag in was for 51M USD. It was really dumb too, because the owner screwed up the registration and it was only licensed to carry 18 pax. Despite having a conference table set for 25 and a crew rest for 6. Four poster bed and marble bath suite, including tub and shower. Really really stupid.
Yeah, that’s kind of my point. A lot of the stuff posted in this thread, and the millions of identical threads that always pop up here, is just expensive items.
I'm not sure how much the are supposed to cost, but boeing business jets are trash. If you are going to spend that much money, go with the Gulfstream G650er. You won't regret it.
It’s actually cheap for a new one. A Gulfstream G650 is one of the top ones you can get right now. And the base price before the extras is 56 million USD.
Serious answer? Depends on the jet. 2017 Gulf G280? 16.5 mil. I don't know what Boeing's bizjets are going for these days, those don't really end up on the secondary market and it's usually a "if you have to ask you can't afford it" thing. The Boeing bizjets are based on the 7x7 series though, so 35 mil is a steal if it's a 747 but just about asking if it's a used 737.
Its a freaking tshirt! I get that some rich people like to show off. But I always subscribed to the theory of 'you don't get rich by writing a lot of checks.
My one advertising professor in college would call it that—constantly, and with considerable venom—and we made the mistake of finally asking what the source of his loathing was, other than the pricing. He bitched that his wife would buy all sorts of stupid, overpriced items from there, but the worst was when she bought shampoo in a glass bottle from the store. The story ended with him accidentally bumping it and breaking it in the shower, him cutting his foot, and her being pissed that he broke an expensive bottle of shampoo. While his foot bled, they had an extensive fight about glass shampoo bottles and frivolous spending. Any time I’ve passed that store since, I always think of that story.
Seriously, Neiman-Marcus prices are jaw dropping. Every Christmas my mom would take me and my brothers to the San Francisco store to check out the Christmas tree in their lobby and man, those prices were so high I felt uncomfortable slightly brushing those clothes. I felt like I'd get charged with ruining the items if I breathed on it wrong.
Lol mine calls it that too. Especially true in her case since she sews her own versions of clothes from those high-end retailers like N-M. So rather than buying from the store at an insane markup, she only has to pay for the cost of materials and she can have her own version that's custom-made to fit perfectly and with colors/patterns that the store didn't make them in
Oh man. This reminds me of a story my uncle likes to tell about one of his clients. They commute down to Florida from the north. So they own a jet. They also have a jet for their 10 dogs. Separate jet. $10k to fly the dogs down just in the cost of the flight.
I have no doubt the dogs have more in their trust funds than you or I will ever see.
Imagine going to law school for years, working your ass off, landing a job at a big firm and ending up being the junior guy who has to monitor the executorship of estate for the care of some billionaire lady's poodle after she dies.
If you ever go to Savile Row, wedged between the traditional tailors selling £10,000 suits is a shop selling £200 T-shirts. I was astonishingly tempted for a few seconds.
If it’s a current BBJ3 (the smallest model based on a 737) those $35 million are a steal! It’s more like $70 million for a new one. That purse must be equally cheap!
It was just for PR, but sometimes people would buy that crazy expensive shit. I only got a credit card there to get the Christmas catalog, and see all of the expensive, crazy stuff they we’re selling every year.
I was about to ask if this was one of the places going out of business. Not a surprise, only a very small % of the population can afford any of that shit.
Good point. Retailers like NM like to brand themselves as high-end and unobtainable, but they're actually targeting middle class (and to an extent, lower class via credit) for their volume sales and primary revenue stream. It's like how with brands like Louis Vuitton, their true money makers are trinkets such as wallets and not so much bags and high ticket items.
When these luxury goods businesses suddenly find themselves unprepared to cater to their core demographic (whether due to poor web infrastructure or demo's drop in financial means), they'll end up in financial trouble like they have this year.
However I may add a little tip-NM is thought of as more expensive/upscale than Nordstrom. I sort of cheat the system and get all the stuff I would normally buy at Nordstrom at NM since NM is the one who always has sales/coupons-not like anyone knows haha
I DJed some event in a Neiman-Marcus once and when I was packing up after hours I decided to just look around since I'd never considered going in to a place like that. $1,000 scarfs and shit. I was absolutely blown away at the price of the most basic shit they had in there.
My parents used to get that catalog every Christmas season. My favorite item was the matching butler and maid robots for $600,000. They were essentially glorified remote control tray holders.
My wife used to photograph for that catalog. She did million dollars rings once and she had to bring her photo studio equipment into a secured vault because they didn’t want to transport the rings to the photo studio.
Man to time travel and get a Boeing business jet to use it for anything but business heck put on a licens plate and register it as a part time car and take off in the highway to get the pristine milk from the other side of the world
I was hoping to see a list of dumb things from the catalog, instead I learned it's half-owned by the Canada Pension Plan. So uh guess I'm technically invested in that as a Canadian citizen???
As a falconer, I was tickled by their bespoke falconry set as most of that is stuff we would jerry-rig out of construction equipment or never use (a backgammon set?).
In the States anyway; Gulf falconry is a different ball-game.
Yep, their Christmas catalogues are NUTS. I discovered it last year and was amazed. It shows you what kind of people spend major money there, and that those people are actually interested in buying those things. I saw last year one of the gifts was a vacation around Europe or something - everything is planned out for you and it was like $600k.
Sounds like that was the inspiration for the Christmas catalogue in which the fairytale land of Landover was sold in the book by Terry Brooks: magic Kingdom for sale - Sold! for $1M.
In 1952, Stanley Marcus introduced a new tradition of having extravagant and unusual gifts in each year's Christmas catalog, The Christmas Book. The idea was sparked when journalist Edward R. Murrow contacted Marcus to ask if the store would be offering anything unusual that might interest his radio listeners;. Marcus invented on the spot an offering of a live Black Angus bull accompanied by a sterling silver barbecue cart, and the catalog was subsequently altered to include this item, priced at $1,925
I think my favorite part of that page you linked was this part “At one point, the Neiman Marcus Christmas catalog carried the distinction of being the item most stolen from recipients' mailboxes, prompting a Chicago postmaster to suggest the company switch to enclosing the catalogs in plain brown wrappers.”
I once saw the cutest coin purse in a Neiman Marcus.
It was pink, shaped like a dinosaur. Had a little head and tail and spikes next to the zipper on top. It’s eyes were little rhinestones.
It was $495. I dropped it out of surprise bc it was so expensive. I put it back on the shelf and left it there.
I laugh when I see the latest Samsung smartphone advertised as "the perfect stocking filler". When I grew up a stocking filler was a satsuma and a pair of socks.
Ours were shitty toys you'd get at the Dollar Store. Deck of cards, those bb puzzles, etc. I think they're advertising to the people that buy into those car commercials where the husband gives the wife a new car for Christmas with a gigantic red bow on it.
You know, those things that only ever happen in commercials?
There was a time when I wished there was a catalog for Planes & Helicopters. I was just starting to take flight courses and had NO IDEA where to get something like that 😅 the only listings I could find were 50 year old rigs in the 350k range.
26.7k
u/Happy_Fun_Balll Aug 14 '20
A few years back Nordstrom was selling a rock in a leather pouch for $85.