Incredible Things Sold for $1

Dollar Tree, eat your heart out
By Kevin Spak,  Newser Staff
Posted Aug 4, 2010 3:30 PM CDT
Incredible Things Sold for $1
On the newsstand, TV Guide costs $2.99, but the entire company was sold for just a buck back in October 2008, to private equity firm OpenGate Capital.   (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, file)

With the stunning sale of Newsweek for a single American dollar this weekend, The Week decided to look into what other amazing things a dollar could buy. Their list:

  • TV Guide: Sold to a private equity company in October 2008 for $1. For just $1.99 more, you could actually buy an issue of the magazine in the grocery aisle.
  • The Robert Ware House: One of four 17th-century Massachusetts farmhouse manors put on the market for $1 last June. But there was a catch: The buyer had to move the house to a new lot.

  • Doctor Hospital: The land this giant Ohio hospital sits on is worth $6.8 million, but with upkeep costs of $1 million a year, it could only fetch a buckeroo when sold this June.
  • Penfield Reef Lighthouse: There's just one problem with this ancient lighthouse, sold by the government in 2008: It's haunted, reputedly prowled by the ghost of a keeper who drowned in 1916. Oh, and it needs massive repairs. So two problems.
  • The Terminator Franchise: James Cameron sold the rights for a buck in 1984, in exchange for the chance to direct the movies. He sort of regrets it. "If I had a little time machine," he said recently, "and I could only send back something the length of a tweet, it'd be 'don't sell'"
(More bargain stories.)

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