# What was the best purchase in history? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [January 30, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237 "2020-01-30T18:43:03Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![DCnDC](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dcndc/32/2842_2.png) [@DCnDC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DCnDC)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/1 "2020-01-30T18:43:03Z")
Who in history, that we know of, got the most for the least? The 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas divided the New World between Spain and Portugal along a meridian 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde islands, off the west coast of Africa. The geography of the New World was still largely a mystery, and the agreement ultimately gave almost the entirety of the New World, save for Brazil, to the Spanish. Despite this, the treaty was mostly honored by both countries. There’s the (likely apocryphal) story of Natives selling Manhattan to the Dutch for a pile of beads and trinkets. The US bought Alaska from Russia, gaining about 375 million acres at roughly 2 cents/acre. The Louisiana Purchase netted the US approximately 512 million acres at under 3 cents/acre. It’s gotta be this, right? ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/2 "2020-01-30T18:57:39Z")
A few dozen oligarchs bought basically all of Russia for pocket change back in the mid-nineties. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 7:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/3 "2020-01-30T19:11:14Z")
In 2010, someone paid 10,000 bitcoins for a couple pizzas. Those bitcoins were worth $200 million at their peak price several years later. Not necessarily the best purchase though. But still interesting. ---
**Author:** ![snfaulkner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snfaulkner/32/433_2.png) [@snfaulkner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snfaulkner)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/4 "2020-01-30T19:35:25Z")
Every single beer I buy. Until it’s the worst purchase. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/5 "2020-01-30T19:59:58Z")
Purchasing your brother’s birthright (inheritance of the family estate) for a mess of pottage (lentil stew) proved to be quite a good deal. (Gen. 25:29-34) > [@Gen. 25:29-34](#): > > 29 And Jacob sod pottage: and Esau came from the field, and he was faint: > > 30 And Esau said to Jacob, Feed me, I pray thee, with that same red pottage; for I am faint: therefore was his name called Edom. > > 31 And Jacob said, Sell me this day thy birthright. > > 32 And Esau said, Behold, I am at the point to die: and what profit shall this birthright do to me? > > 33 And Jacob said, Swear to me this day; and he sware unto him: and he sold his birthright unto Jacob. > > 34 Then Jacob gave Esau bread and pottage of lentiles; and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way: thus Esau despised his birthright. ---
**Author:** ![Senegoid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/senegoid/32/6606_2.png) [@Senegoid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Senegoid)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/6 "2020-01-30T20:24:01Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > There’s the (likely apocryphal) story of Natives selling Manhattan to the Dutch for a pile of beads and trinkets. It may have happened, and it may have been worse than that. James W. Loewen, author of revisionist history books, points out that the sale was also a fraud: The Dutch paid the money (or beads or whatever) to a tribe that didn’t own the land. The same may have happened with the Louisiana Purchase. I think it was this book that has the story: [Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong](https://www.amazon.com/Lies-My-Teacher-Told-Everything/dp/1620973928) From a [summary of the chapter that I just found on-line](https://www.litcharts.com/lit/lies-my-teacher-told-me/chapter-4-red-eyes): > [@](#): > > One of the most dangerous fallacies in history textbooks is that Native Americans had a strange, pre-modern understanding of property. It’s well-known that Dutch settlers bought Manhattan from Manhat natives for “a pile of beads”; the anecdote is usually interpreted to mean that the natives didn’t understand the principle of ownership or the potential of their land. What the anecdote omits is that the Dutch accidentally paid the wrong tribe, the Canarsees, and that the Manhat spent the next decade fighting for control of their own land. Another well-known “fact” from history textbooks is that Thomas Jefferson doubled the size of the U.S by buying Louisiana from France. Textbooks ignore the fact that the land wasn’t France’s to sell; it had been stolen from Native Americans through a series of fraudulent transactions, and the U.S. continued to fight natives in Louisiana for control of the land for the next century. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/7 "2020-01-30T20:40:37Z")
> [@DCnDC](#): > > There’s the (likely apocryphal) story of Natives selling Manhattan to the Dutch for a pile of beads and trinkets. [And the buyers damn near lost money on the deal.](https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/lessons-great-default-crisis-1975/) Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/8 "2020-01-30T20:41:26Z")
> [@Senegoid](#): > > From a [summary of the chapter that I just found on-line](https://www.litcharts.com/lit/lies-my-teacher-told-me/chapter-4-red-eyes): The land was “France’s to sell” in that no other polity recognized at the time as a nation-state claimed sovereignty over the territory (It would later take a US Supreme Court ruling to declare that the various indigenous tribes were in fact legal nations). In any case what the US was purchasing was France’s _claim_ to the territory; so the rest is splitting hairs. ---
**Author:** ![kopek](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kopek/32/337_2.png) [@kopek](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kopek)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/9 "2020-01-30T20:51:33Z")
And as usual, since this is where it is and all … hookers and blow; always the best purchase. ---
**Author:** ![Xema](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/9de053/32.png) [@Xema](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xema)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2020, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/10 "2020-01-30T21:11:00Z")
As noted in OP, Alaska purchase (1867) deserves consideration. ---
**Author:** ![Anita\_Dayoff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Anita\_Dayoff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anita_Dayoff)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 1:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/11 "2020-01-31T01:01:51Z")
My divorce ---
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/12 "2020-01-31T01:19:57Z")
> [@Anita\_Dayoff](#): > > My divorce Seconded. ---
**Author:** ![RioRico](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f04885/32.png) [@RioRico](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RioRico)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 2:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/13 "2020-01-31T02:22:45Z")
US politicians can be bought pretty cheap. Europeans are much more expensive. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/14 "2020-01-31T02:25:53Z")
> [@RioRico](#): > > US politicians can be bought pretty cheap. Europeans are much more expensive. Is that true? I mean in the US, for a billion dollars you can buy politicians who pass laws that net them hundreds of billions of dollars. But are European politicians actually more expensive? I thought they had public funding in many places there. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/15 "2020-01-31T02:56:25Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Is that true? > > I mean in the US, for a billion dollars you can buy politicians who pass laws that net them hundreds of billions of dollars. > > But are European politicians actually more expensive? I thought they had public funding in many places there. From Wikipedia’s List of Paradoxes: [Tullock Paradox](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tullock_paradox): Bribing politicians costs less than one would expect, considering how much profit it can yield. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 3:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/16 "2020-01-31T03:13:24Z")
George Steinbrennner bought the New York Yankees in 1973 for $8.8-million. Forbes now lists the tean at $4.6-billion, a 500-fold increase. Who’da thunk the Yankees would ever be worth anything? ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/17 "2020-01-31T03:22:52Z")
John Batman’s [treaty with the Wurrundjeri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman%27s_Treaty) for the land on which Melbourne now stands was a pretty good deal. > [@](#): > > For 600,000 acres of Melbourne, including most of the land now within the suburban area, Batman paid 40 pairs of blankets, 42 tomahawks, 130 knives, 62 pairs of scissors, 40 looking glasses, 250 handkerchiefs, 18 shirts, 4 flannel jackets, 4 suits of clothes and 150 lb. of flour. Controversial aspects of the treaty include, but are not limited to, the fact that the European participants had absolutely no legal authority to conclude treaties or agreements of any sort (though they were at least meeting with the correct indigenous representatives), the fact that they defaulted on their obligations almost immediately (the treaty called for an annual payment - probably never happened AFAIK) and of course the old question of whether the indigenous side were agreeing to the same thing the European side were agreeing to. Settlement in Melbourne, or “Batmania” as they were calling it then exploded almost immediately, so I’m pretty sure various people in Batman’s group made out like bandits, though not so much Batman himself, since he kicked it only four years later ---
**Author:** ![TonySinclair](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/49beb7/32.png) [@TonySinclair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TonySinclair)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 3:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/18 "2020-01-31T03:28:55Z")
> [@Aspidistra](#): > > John Batman’s [treaty with the Wurrundjeri](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman%27s_Treaty) for the land on which Melbourne now stands was a pretty good deal. Who would win in a deal contest, Trump or Batman? ---
**Author:** ![Moriarty](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/moriarty/32/49_2.png) [@Moriarty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Moriarty)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 3:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/19 "2020-01-31T03:39:45Z")
> [@TonySinclair](#): > > Who would win in a deal contest, Trump or Batman? Allow me: Is Batman prepared? ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2020, 4:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237/20 "2020-01-31T04:09:30Z")
Of all the things trump has named after himself, none has a title remotely as cool as “Batmania” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-was-the-best-purchase-in-history/847237.md?page=2)