Worthless Yellow Rocks: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|'''[[Con Man|Quark]]:''' Someone's extracted all the '''[[Unobtanium|latinum]]!''' There's nothing here but worthless '''gold!'''
'''Odo:''' And it's all yours.
'''[[Ultimate Salesman|Quark]]:''' '''[[Big No|NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!]]'''
|''[[Star Trek: Deep Space Nine]]'', episode "Who Mourns for Morn?"}}
The characters of a story run across something very valuable. But, due to ignorance, stupidity or possibly not being from Earth, they discard it as worthless junk. The audience groans in disbelief as wealth beyond their dreams is left lying on the floor.
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Finding gold is the most common example of this trope. Though it has industrial applications as a highly corrosion-resistant electrical conductor and potential as a cheaper alternative to platinum catalysts, almost all of gold's value is due to its rarity. And, in a disaster situation, gold would quickly prove to be worthless after all. This can lead to an ironic [[Death by Materialism]] situation for someone who's "smart" enough to figure out what those funny yellow rocks really are and won't abandon them when they really should be running for the door. Compare [[All That Glitters]].
A common [[Karmic Twist Ending]] is for Earthly characters to encounter a world or dimension where something like gold is so plentiful that it has little value, or where something common on earth, like aluminium or copper, takes the place of gold or platinum as the ultimate precious metal. (
There is [[Truth in Television]] for the reasoning behind this trope. There is a law of economics where materials decrease in value as they become more abundant. (Refer to the above paragraph.)
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Not to be confused with [[Green Rocks]].<ref>''usually''</ref> See also [[All That Glitters]] and [[Commonplace Rare]]. [[Kids Prefer Boxes]] is the G-rated version. Sometimes the species in question [[Solid Gold Poop|has a reason to not care about the shiny yellow rocks]]... A counterpart is [[Only Electric Sheep Are Cheap]]; both can exist in the same work. When video game money is useless because there's nothing to buy with it, that's [[Money for Nothing]].
Contrast [[Gold Fever]] (where people go nuts over amounts of gold or some other valuable), [[Gold Makes Everything Shiny]], [[Mundane Object Amazement]], and [[Grail in the Garbage]].▼
▲Contrast [[Gold Fever]] (where people go nuts over amounts of gold or some other valuable), [[Gold Makes Everything Shiny]], [[Mundane Object Amazement]].
Not to be confused with pyrite, also known as "fool's gold".
{{examples}}
== Advertising ==
* [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3usaGfn7r0w Doritos - Make Your Own -- Crash the Super Bowl 2012 Entry]
{{quote|What am I going to do with all this gold‽}}
== Anime and Manga ==
* In ''[[Elfen Lied]]'', Nana burns thousands of yen on the beach for warmth on a cold night due to never having experienced the world outside the laboratory where she was used as a test subject.
** She then has nightmares of being crucified while naked at the hands of vengeful money-people, thanks to Mayu.
* Taken in all directions in the manga and anime ''[[One Piece]]'':
*
** Speaking of the Whole Cake Island arc, Big Mom has no use for gold or any other valuable material, demanding candy as tribute from her subjects. Before that arc officially started, Fish Man Island is unable to make this payment on time (the equipment at their candy factory breaks) and Luffy volunteers to tell Big Mom about the delay (the fish-men are too afraid to); Luffy claims he had eaten it himself by accident, offering Big Mom a large amount of treasure as monetary compensation; while she does accept that offer (she's lost two ships in a schism with the Kid Pirates and needs funds for the damages) she is still furious, telling him she can't eat gold. Fortunately, this does do what Luffy intended and gets the fish-men off the hook.
* In ''[[Princess Mononoke]]'', there's a scene where a merchant throws a hissy-fit when Ashitaka pays for his bag of rice with a small, yellow rock...At least until a passing monk notices and points out that it's a solid gold nugget, and that it's probably worth three times what she gave him.
* While it's not gold, when [[Hayate the Combat Butler|Hayate]] is told to spend a few (3) days away from the mansion because Nagi's embarrassed, he's given one million yen (~$11,000 US, £8,000). Which he promptly loses. It gets returned to the mansion and Maria counts it, stating that it's almost exactly what he was given for living expenses. Nagi passes by the table and asks what all the [http://www.mangafox.com/manga/hayate_the_combat_butler/c077/13.html chump change] is.
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* Inverted in ''[[Spice and Wolf]]'', which has iron pyrite (also known as ''fool's gold'') suddenly becoming incredibly valuable in one town.
== Comic Books ==
== Comics ==▼
* In ''[[Asterix]] and the Black Gold'', "rock oil" (''petra oleum'') is only valuable because Getafix uses it in its potion.
** And by the end of the story {{spoiler|[[Does This Remind You of Anything?|he discovers a local plant that works just as well]].}}
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* In ''[[The Smurfs]]'' comic book story "The Finance Smurf", Miner comes across a pile of "worthless yellow rocks" in his mine that he doesn't know what to do with. The title character Smurf decides to use them for minting coins as part of the Smurf Village monetary system. Later on, when the Smurfs abandon that system and return to their old communal ways, it gets used for making musical instruments.
* In the ''[[Ben 10]]'' fanfiction ''[http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3875254/1/Hero_High_Earth_style Hero High: Earth Style]'', Ren has a solid gold picture frame. She laments the fact that she was surprised how valuable the material was on Earth, as it was quite common on her planet.▼
▲== Fanfiction ==
▲* In the ''[[Ben 10]]'' fanfiction [http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3875254/1/Hero_High_Earth_style Hero High: Earth Style], Ren has a solid gold picture frame. She laments the fact that she was surprised how valuable the material was on Earth, as it was quite common on her planet.
* In Petty's take on [[Nuzlocke Comics|the Nuzlocke]] ''[[Pokémon]]'' [[Nuzlocke Comics|Challenge]], Barb the Nidoran/rina/queen collects pieces of paper that she finds, which trainer Locke ignores. After Locke has a meltdown, Barb offers to share her "paper collection" with her, and Locke discovers that it contains the SS Anne ticket and the Bike Voucher, which are priceless in the games and to Locke, but just paper to Barb.
* In one chapter of Ellen Brand's ''Personality Conflicts'' series, Ignatz Hills, proprietor of the "Old As The Hills" antique store, sells a glass statue, priced at thirty dollars, to a customer on Christmas Eve. The stranger, who wears a trench coat and fedora (and is actually [[Power Rangers in Space|Ecliptor]], buying a present for Astronoma), pays with a "perfect clear emerald, the size of a fingernail, without flaws". When Hill protests that perfect emeralds are incredibly rare (and far more valuable than the statue he just sold), Ecliptor replies that "Where I come from, they're as common as grains of sand."
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* Heavily averted in ''[[Cowboys and Aliens (film)|Cowboys and Aliens]]'' where the main reason the aliens came to earth was to mine it out for Gold.
* Taken to horrifying conclusions in ''[[Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade]].'' If you drink from one of the many beautiful chalices of life, created with gold, diamonds, and other precious metals, [[Death by Materialism|your age is sped up to the point of death.]] The only true chalice that will grant you immortality is {{spoiler|made of wood or clay, because that's all a carpenter like Jesus would have used.}}
** A more lighthearted Zigzagged example in the same movie; the sultan is unimpressed with the gold and jewels the Nazis offer him, but he ''does'' take a quick liking to their Rolls-Royce Phantom II.
* During the song "Heigh-Ho!" from ''[[Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (Disney film)|Snow White and The Seven Dwarfs]]'', the seven dwarfs apparently own a diamond mine, but when Doc sees a ruby among the harvested diamonds, he immediately gives it to Dopey, who then throws out the unwanted minerals.
* Played with in the original ''[[Dawn of the Dead]]''. When Roger and Peter find a bank in the mall, they stare at a cashbox full of mixed bills, then stare and smile at another cashbox full of wrapped $100 bills. Roger says, "You never know..." before they both fill their pockets with cash. {{spoiler|When the biker gang breaks into the mall, they loot the bank as well.}}
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* Diamonds, rubies, sapphire, and emeralds are all popular building materials in the ''[[Robert Reed|Great Ship]]'' universe. Glass has been replaced by diamond panels, and the other precious gems are used essentially like wallpaper.
* Played with in Phyllis Eisenstein's "The Crystal Tower". The hero, Cray Ormoru, finds himself in a place where gemstones are so common as to be worthless. But when he tries to pay for a drink with a silver coin from his homeland, the proprietress is first suspicious, then unsure what to do when offered something so rare and valuable as silver. She decides to use the coin as jewelry.
== Live-Action TV ==
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* The History Channel TV Show ''Modern Marvels'' had an episode on recycling where the plant manager of a metals recovery firm was displaying to the audience a box containing gray chunks and dust which looked like, well, worthless dirt and rocks, and admitted that's what most people thought it was. You'd be surprised to discover that the box contained ''two and one-half million U.S. dollars'' worth of recycled platinum.
* In the NBC's ''[[Gulliver's Travels]]'' mini-series, the Houyhnhnms are puzzled as to why the Yahoos love certain common rocks (actually gigantic diamonds), Gulliver explaining that "primitive creatures love shiny things." In secret, he collects some for himself to sell in England only to throw them away when he decides to stay with the Houyhnhnms.
* Played with in the reimagined ''[[Battlestar Galactica
* In one episode of ''[[Tales from the Crypt]]'' ("Dead Wait"), the protagonist explores a remote location, searching for a legendary black pearl in the hopes of getting rich. In the end, a local murders him, celebrating that collecting his scalp full of ''red hair'' will increase her status immensely. She notices the pearl, and throws it away like it was trash.
* Gold is as common as dirt on the planet Voga in ''[[Doctor Who]]''. Unfortunately, this makes the Vogans a target for both greedy human prospectors and Cybermen who hope to eliminate a source of weapons against them (gold dust is to Cybermen as silver is to werewolves).
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* In the original ''[[My Favorite Martian (TV)]]'', Tim O'Hara accidentally breaks some ordinary drinking glasses, and Uncle Martin muses that it's a pity because on Mars, objects made from glass are exceptionally valuable.
* In one episode of ''[[Lost in Space]]'', treasure hunters come looking for the treasure of a man from a planet where gold and gems were extraordinarily common. The treasure chests contain objects of aluminum and tin - to a man who had handled gem encrusted gold objects every day of his life, they ''were'' treasure.
* In a segment of ''[[The Daily Show]]'', Aasif Mandvi is explaining how bad the economy is, and what to invest in. When Jon Stewart says, "What about gold?", Aasif replies, "It turns out that gold is just a shiny metal. ''Very'' shiny, but still just metal."▼
* In the old radio show ''[[X Minus One]],'' a protagonist got mixed up in a time-traveling get-rick-quick scheme by going to the past and investing in stocks that would rise and property loaded with a type of mineral that the seller told him had interesting scientific qualities but was basically
==
* Classic urban legend: A jilted wife advertises her ex/absentee/cheating/imprisoned-husbands car for way less than cheap in the newspaper. A youngish man comes to buy the car, typically a cherry 50's-70's pony car or custom muscle car with a Blue Book value that looks like a phone number, for $10. (In some versions, she just wanted to [[It's All Junk|get rid of the reminder]]; in others, [[Idiot Ball|the husband had sent a message asking her to]] [[Revenge|"sell the car and send me the money"]].)▼
* Then there's the old joke about the rich man who died, and an angel was sent to bring him to Heaven. He bargains with the angel, and its superiors in Heaven, to allow him to bring all his riches with him, which they are against. Eventually, they cave in and allow him one single suitcase and whatever he can fit into it, which after agonized deliberation, he fills with solid gold ingots. After he arrives in heaven, Saint Peter asks what he brought, and the man opens the suitcase. Saint Peter looks at him with a confused expression on his face and asks "You brought PAVEMENT?"▼
* A standard old-timey joke involves someone offering his dim-witted friend a choice between "a shiny coin" or "a straggly bit of paper" (usually a £1 coin and a £50 note respectively). The idiot takes the coin of course; if they're feeling subversive, he'll also take the paper "to wrap it up in".▼
** There's also a version of the joke where a bystander takes pity on the dim-wit and points out to him that the piece of paper is worth more than the coin—to which the supposed dim-wit replies that ''one'' piece of paper is worth more than ''one'' coin, but that as long as he keeps picking the coin, his friend will keep offering him more.▼
* One more joke/urban legend that's been used multiple times in various media. An elderly man passes away, and his widow begins to wonder how she'll be able to afford to keep their house. Someone comes to help her sort through her
== Tabletop Games ==
* In the ''[[Dragonlance]]'' campaign setting for ''[[Dungeons & Dragons]]'', the value of gold dropped sharply [[After the End|after the Cataclysm]]; steel pieces are used where gold pieces would be used in other campaign settings. This made ''very little sense.'' Only a creative GM would stop you from getting rich by buying swords and melting them down.<ref>Long Sword cost: 15 steel pieces. Weight: ~4 lbs. Coin weight: 1/10 lb.</ref>
** In [[Dark Sun]], though, another campaign setting, this is handled much better—you can't melt down your swords for (insanely valuable) steel, because of course ''only the god-kings'' (and their trusted lieutenants and so on) could afford a steel sword; most weapons are made of obsidian. The primary currency is ceramic, and is backed by said God-Kings' say-so, not by any inherent value of its material (although more valuable silver, gold, and platinum pieces do exist, they are so valuable that they are almost never used; and nobody would waste what little steel there is on currency, since it is essentially priceless).
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{{quote|''Why do they always want gold? What do they do with it? Do they'' eat ''it?''}}
** Ogres consider gold innately worthless, because it doesn't make good eating and isn't sturdy enough to make weapons or useful tools out of. They do hoard it... but only because they can "con" other races into giving them "valuable" food and weapons in exchange for "worthless" gold—although Greasus Goldtooth seems to have found another use; paying people on the other side to suffer a spontaneous outbreak of incompetence.
== Video Games ==
* In ''[[Kingdom of Loathing]]''', the local currency is meat. One adventure in Itznotyerzitz Mine in which you "feel pretty moxious for trading a bunch of worthless rocks for cold, hard meat", those rocks being various diamonds. There also exist "fat stacks of cash" and "pile of gold coins" items, which are [[Vendor Trash|utterly worthless]], only good for trading for a small amount of meat.
** In the same mine, it's possible to convert your "worthless" chunks of diamond into useful chunks of coal. Yay!
** There was a period when the [[Everything
* In the freeware game ''Vinnie's Tomb'', you encounter an Old Queer Snake living on a heap of garbage who has the key to the aforementioned tomb. Understandably, the player will try offering him various items in their inventory, including an enormous diamond you find in that same heap. Waving the diamond in front of him will prompt dialogue along these lines:
{{quote|Vinnie: Will you trade me the key for this diamond?
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* Late in ''[[Popful Mail]]'', air-headed elf boy Slick is astonished when Mail mentions to him that she needs to find a set of magical orbs to prevent the Overlord from reviving. They're actually powerful artifacts, but Slick thinks of treasure in terms of gold coins and precious jewels, and thus had this to say to her:
{{quote|"''ORBS?'' What good are dumb old ''orbs''? If I saw one, I'd probably just pass by."}}
* ''[[Fallout]]'':
** In the
** This is obviously a [[Call Back]] to a scene in ''[[Fallout 2]]'' (which switched from the caps of the first game to generic "money"), where you stumble on an enormous heap of bottle caps, which are now worthless.
** Incidentally, in ''[[Fallout 1]]'' the value of the bottlecaps received a good explanation: they were backed up by the ''real'' currency, like banknotes used to be backed up by gold in [[Real Life]]: clean water, the most valuable substance in the wasteland. Though it wasn't JUST the water that made caps valuable. It was also the fact that bottle caps were incapable of being replicated, thus no forgery, and their mineral composition gave them a modicum of worth. Same case with bottle caps in the Capital Wasteland.
{{quote|Everyone in the game still prefers to deal with caps instead of other currency - only casino cashiers are willing to pay you in NCR dollars or Legion coins.}}
▲*** In ''[[Fallout: New Vegas]]'' a couple more wrinkles are added:
:* The NCR starts to print paper money backed by gold. Unfortunately, before the game starts the NCR gold reserves are irradiated by the Brotherhood of Steel, so they have to switch back to backing their currency on water. This massively reduces the value of the NCR dollar.▼
:* The Legion mints its own money system of gold and silver coins which end up having a higher value than NCR currency or bottlecaps, owing to actually being made from said metals.▼
▲The NCR starts to print paper money backed by gold. Unfortunately, before the game starts the NCR gold reserves are irradiated by the Brotherhood of Steel, so they have to switch back to backing their currency on water. This massively reduces the value of the NCR dollar.
:* Someone in the game gives you a quest to destroy a bottlecap press located in a pre-war soda factory, noting that a supply of newly pressed "counterfeit" caps will
▲The Legion mints its own money system of gold and silver coins which end up having a higher value than NCR currency or bottlecaps, owing to actually being made from said metals.
▲Someone in the game gives you a quest to destroy a bottlecap press located in a pre-war soda factory, noting that a supply of newly pressed "counterfeit" caps will destablize the economy. (Unfortunately, you aren't given a chance to use the press before destroying it.)
In the ''Dead Money'' expansion, you can come across gold ingots - these weigh 35 pounds and are valued at 10,349 caps. This means that many items (like fully-repaired rifles and energy weapons) are worth ''more'' than their weight in gold. }}
* The MMORPG ''[[RuneScape]]'' sometimes did this, along with other self-parody. In one quest, there is a cutscene of the Trolls killing an adventurer and discarding the 'worthless' red metal he was wearing (the most expensive set of armor in the game at the time).
** The Villagers in Tai Bwo Wannai on Karamja consider gold to be not worth much, due to how much of it there is on Karamja, but find some plants to be useful as currency. The [[Tz Haar]] also find gold useless, because the volcano they live in is hot enough that it melts (curiously, the temperature seems only to make gold worthless in [[Tz Haar]] city, burn paper, and make Rum vanish, and not effect anything else), so they use bits of obsidian as currency.
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* At one point in [[The Longest Journey]], protagonist April Ryan can attempt to buy something in an Arcadian marketplace using her gold ring, only to be informed by the merchant that gold is worthless there - the precious metal of choice in Arcadia is iron.
* In [[Tales of the Drunken Paladin]], Save Hobos find gold worthless and build their slum sector out of it.
== Web Comics ==
* In ''[[Freefall]]'', two supporting characters are looking for Sam because he scammed a 50 kg bag of diamonds from them. This is supposed to trick the reader, and subvert the expectation. Diamonds are, of course, dirt cheap in the Freefall future, and someone made them by accident by feeding CO2 instead of argon into the magnetic bottle of a fusion reactor on startup.
** [https://web.archive.org/web/20130308063648/http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1500/fc01404.htm Later on] Florence meets a group of robot student tailors that use gold cloth, silver thread, and lots of gems. Organic cloth is rather expensive after all.
** [http://freefall.purrsia.com/ff1300/fv01252.htm This one] explains the trope perfectly (as well as the basis of economic trade in every time period or world ever).
* In ''[[The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob]]'', aliens can synthesize gold very easily. This is sometimes used to pay for repairs to Bob's repeatedly destroyed roof.
* ''[[The
* X in ''[[A Magical Roommate]]'' exploits this trope by paying her entrance into a magical university with aluminium. She also apparently plans to profit off platinum...
** [[Justified Trope|It makes sense]], though. See real-world examples below.
* Mentioned in ''[[8-
{{quote|'''Thief:''' Wealth that belongs to those who can ''make'' it? Great Elf in the sky... We must stop this horrible future no matter the cost! So long as cost ''remains'' on the backs of the poor.}}
* ''[[Dragon Mango]]'': The goblin king refuses a sack of gold and [http://www.dragon-mango.com/comic/chapter04/dm04-78.htm demands something useful like a chicken or a box of donuts], saying that they have literally whole walls made of the that "worthless gold". War is averted with a happy ending when the true worth of gold is explained to him (and almost immediately goblins are reclassified from monsters to people by surrounding nations)
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* Discussed in ''[[Dubious Company]]''. [[Professional Gambler|Sal and Leeroy]] win a [[Born Lucky|presumably]] large fortune at the [[Dances and Balls|Festival of Veils]]. While excited about their winnings, they decide to [[Pet the Dog|give it up]] as the Elvish currency would be worthless in whatever [[Alternate Dimension|dimension]] they would end up in next.
* Gold is {{spoiler|worthless}} to [[Drowtales|Drow]] for two logical reasons. Drow living underground come across gold way more often than anyone else, making it a very common metal. It also cannot be used for weapons and armor due to it's physical properties, and can not hold mana, so it's only purpose is decoration. Fossilized tree sap on the other hand (which are literally worthless yellow rocks for people on the surface), appear to be extremely valuable.
== Western Animation ==
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** From the same episode, Dr. Zoidberg tries to spend his $300 tax refund on luxury goods but dismisses them as junk:
{{quote|'''Zoidberg:''' ''(after sampling some jewellery)'' I ask for rich guy stuff and you give me shiny pebbles? Bah! I bid you adieu!}}
** Another example is when the Planet Express team is traveling cross-country in an old Volkswagon van (which still runs somehow, even after being buried for 1,000+ years). Having ruined most of their money in the washing machine, they're desperate for some food. Zoidberg then coughs up blue-and-pink-swirled pearls, which he thinks are disgusting (because he did literally vomit them out), but Leela finds them beautiful...and so do many other people, as she's able to sell necklaces and bracelets made from Zoidberg's pearls.
* On ''Rocky and the Dodos'', Rocky, Tantra, and Elvis dismiss gold coins they find with a metal detector, as they thought that it would help them find Limpets.
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*** Inverted when Marge brings to [[John Waters]] what she thinks is an antique Civil War soldier statue, but is just a bottle of Johnny Reb whiskey.
{{quote|'''John:''' ''(after taking a shot of whiskey from the statue)'' Ah, that'll make your bull run.}}
** In "The Burns and the Bees", Prof. Frink uses a perfume to attract bees. Moments after using it, a incredibly sexy woman walks up to him begging him to marry her and she will support him for life. Frink only states that she isn't a bee, deems the perfume useless and throws it away.
* Sorta-kinda done on ''[[SpongeBob SquarePants]]'', in the episode "Idiot Box." The episode begins with the titular character buying a humongous flat-screen television, only to throw it away. It's quickly revealed that he actually bought it for the cardboard box it was packed in.
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{{quote|'''Burgler:''' Rats! The case around it is made of ''pure diamond!'' [[Lampshade Hanging|How ironic.]]}}
* The ''[[Rocky and Bullwinkle|Fractured Fairy Tales]]'' version of King Midas encounters this when, in an attempt to improve his public image, gives himself the "Golden Touch" (actually just discreetly painting objects gold). His subjects clamor to the castle to get various objects turned gold, but they do it so much that gold eventually becomes worthless to them. The kingdom shifts from the gold standard to turnips—something comparatively valuable, but which King Midas doesn't have, making him the poorest person in his own kingdom.
* One ''[[Underdog]]'' cartoon features an alien race called Cloud Men, who have so much gold they make furniture out of it. It's worthless to them; what they really need is silver (because all clouds [[Literal Metaphor| need a silver lining]]) so they steal it from other planets. Eventually, Polly convinces them to ''trade'' their gold for silver, which they apparently never considered.
* The very first scene with Eda in ''[[The Owl House]]'' has her going through the stuff she had Owlbert steal from the human world; she discards a golden chalice, a diamond ring, and Lutz's mobile phone (the reason Lutz followed Owlbert) as "garbage", while viewing a pair of novelty gag-glasses as a valuable artifact. Or rather, something she [[Snake Oil Salesman|can sucker customers into paying for.]]
* ''[[Duck Tales]]'',
** In an episode of the original show, Scrooge and a member of the Status Seekers Club want a rare mask from the king of a tropical island that would make either of them president of the club. They both offer the king expensive jewelry and other fancy gifts, but he just laughs and tells them he has no need for such trinkets. Eventually, Mrs. Beakley is able to get him to trade the mask for something he actually wants — [[Food as Bribe| a simple jar of peanut butter.]]
▲* In a segment of ''[[The Daily Show]]'', Aasif Mandvi is explaining how bad the economy is, and what to invest in. When Jon Stewart says, "What about gold?", Aasif replies, "It turns out that gold is just a shiny metal. ''Very'' shiny, but still just metal."
** In another episode, Scrooge finds an aquatic race who regard shipwreck treasure as worthless garbage and keep it in a landfill. When Scrooge takes it all to the surface, they curse him for stealing — but then they realize he essentially just took out their garbage for them and did them a favor.
▲* Classic urban legend: A jilted wife advertises her ex/absentee/cheating/imprisoned-husbands car for way less than cheap in the newspaper. A youngish man comes to buy the car, typically a cherry 50's-70's pony car or custom muscle car with a Blue Book value that looks like a phone number, for $10. (In some versions, she just wanted to [[It's All Junk|get rid of the reminder]]; in others, [[Idiot Ball|the husband had sent a message asking her to]] [[Revenge|"sell the car and send me the money"]].)
▲* Then there's the old joke about the rich man who died, and an angel was sent to bring him to Heaven. He bargains with the angel, and its superiors in Heaven, to allow him to bring all his riches with him, which they are against. Eventually, they cave in and allow him one single suitcase and whatever he can fit into it, which after agonized deliberation, he fills with solid gold ingots. After he arrives in heaven, Saint Peter asks what he brought, and the man opens the suitcase. Saint Peter looks at him with a confused expression on his face and asks "You brought PAVEMENT?"
▲* A standard old-timey joke involves someone offering his dim-witted friend a choice between "a shiny coin" or "a straggly bit of paper" (usually a £1 coin and a £50 note respectively). The idiot takes the coin of course; if they're feeling subversive, he'll also take the paper "to wrap it up in".
▲** There's also a version of the joke where a bystander takes pity on the dim-wit and points out to him that the piece of paper is worth more than the coin—to which the supposed dim-wit replies that ''one'' piece of paper is worth more than ''one'' coin, but that as long as he keeps picking the coin, his friend will keep offering him more.
▲* One more joke/urban legend that's been used multiple times in various media. An elderly man passes away, and his widow begins to wonder how she'll be able to afford to keep their house. Someone comes to help her sort through her husbands things, and sees some scraps of paper that the widow is using as bookmarks or wrapping paper otherwise seen as useless. Upon looking a little closer, they realize that those scraps of paper were ''stock certificates,'' and the late husband bought a few hundred shares in some start-up way back in the Seventies that has since turned into IBM or Microsoft, or some other newly blossomed company.
▲* In the old radio show ''X Minus One,'' a protagonist got mixed up in a time-traveling get-rick-quick scheme by going to the past and investing in stocks that would rise and property loaded with a type of mineral that the seller told him had interesting scientific qualities but was basically worthless—uranium.
== Real Life ==
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** The electrical requirements for reducing aluminum are so great, that it's worthwhile to ship bauxite (ore which contains aluminum oxide) to Iceland (where electricity is very cheap) to be refined, and then ship the aluminum back. Or to put it another way, Iceland uses the aluminum refining process as a means to export its electricity. Granted that the alternative method of laying power lines across the North Atlantic would be difficult, but still.
** Emperor Napoleon III of France had a set of plates made from aluminum in the late 1800s. It was such an ostentatious display of wealth that it was only used at state banquets, and then only for the most important guests. Less important guests had to ''settle'' for eating from gold plates. He also commissioned a gold-and-aluminum rattle for his son.
** It should be pointed out that the while aluminum does require a lot of energy to obtain through the current technique of electrolysis, it's still a lot more efficient than earlier processes, which is why the metal was once so expensive and no longer is. To put in into a perspective, aluminum now costs somewhere around $2,000 per ton, while steel is about $500 and titanium, as discussed below, is eleven times more expensive at $4,800 just before the patent expiration.
▲**** Despite titanium rings being all the rage nowadays, be under no illusion they are worth more than your standard 18 karat gold ring. Gold is worth about $35,000,000 per ton. One of a titanium ring's 'special' traits is that they cannot be resized if you gain/lose weight.
** All of the above is ironically an example of [[Aluminum Christmas Trees]] when viewed from a modern perspective.
** Players of ''[[Dwarf Fortress]]'' will likely be familiar with [[Shown Their Work|the value of pre-industrial aluminum]] (and the usefulness of bauxite, the only lava-proof stone for a long time).
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** Look around your bathroom on the ingredients list. Chances are, if it goes on your skin (sunscreen) or hair (hairspray), it'll have titanium dioxide. Titanium is also used in replacement joints—not for its strength, but for being something to which nobody is allergic.
** An interesting point: because the richest titanium mines were in the Soviet Union and Eastern Bloc during the [[Cold War]], the American aircraft engineers at the Lockheed Skunkworks literally called the stuff "[[Unobtanium]]".
**
** As if that weren't enough, titanium ''burns'' in open air at about 1200 degrees Celsius, but doesn't melt until 1600-1700 degrees - so trying to melt it in air leaves you with the same titanium oxide you just spent ludicrous amounts to process. It has to be worked in inert gases or in vacuum, which is about as much of a pain as it sounds.
* The nebulae from which stars form have wildly varying compositions. Exploding supernovae "season" embryonic solar system with heavy elements; on the other hand, older "Population II" stars have few elements heavier than lithium. Spectroscopic studies show stars with different elemental ratios than our own sun, and their planets should follow suit.
* Within our own solar system, it has recently been confirmed that Saturn's moon Titan is covered with ''oceans'' of liquid methane and ethane—the same natural gas we sink drilling platforms deep through the seabed to extract small amounts of.
** But it's still a moon of a freaking different planet, so it is even ''more'' [[unobtanium]]y.
*** Consider this, it takes 60 MJ to get on kilo of matter into space,
*** It's almost like the universe is taunting us.
**** If you thought that was taunting, there are bands of ''alcohol'' in the universe several [https://web.archive.org/web/20131104172941/http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/beercld.htm hundreds of millions of miles long].
{{quote|Scientists said the cloud, located near the constellation Aquila, contains enough alcohol to make 400 trillion trillion pints of beer.}}
* Many's the time a fellow has lamented the fact that years ago his mother threw out his comic book or baseball trading card collection that would today be worth thousands of dollars. Of course, it is the fact that lots of collections were thrown out that makes the surviving collections be worth thousands today in the first place. This reason has actually led to the trope being played completely straight—baseball card prices drop sharply (even adjusting for age) for cards newer than 1980 or so. The reason for this is that a much larger pool of cards from this era exist because a large number of parents told their kids to store the cards carefully and never play with them as they could be worth a lot of money someday. This is why things like a can of ''[[Halo 3]]'' Mountain Dew Game Fuel is going to be worth a lot. Sure, people store cards, but who ever thought up storing an unopened can of soda? Not too many people.
** This example doesn't play the trope as straight as it sounds. A lot of these (comics in particular) were the result of "salting the goldmine" type scams. In short: collector plants stories of "mint-condition" comics selling for scads and scads of money, and then turns around and offers their own books at a substantial discount from the reported price, while using mind-bogglingly arbitrary "grading schemes" to keep others out of the con.
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*** Well, it wouldn't be a neutron star, as those aren't made of carbon (the outer layers would likely be iron, and individual atoms wouldn't exist in the core). A carbon/oxygen white dwarf might qualify (and there are a lot of them), but I'm not sure if carbon at degeneracy pressures really counts as "diamond".
*** Yes, it's a white dwarf star.
** And now there appears to be a planet made of diamond [https://web.archive.org/web/20150924154847/http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/25/us-planet-diamond-idUSTRE77O69A20110825 a mere 4000 light-years away].
** It's been theorized that the gas giant planets could have cores, or layers, where the temperature and pressure has turned the carbon into diamond.
* Historically, [[wikipedia:Amethyst|amethyst]] was one of the [[wikipedia:Cardinal gem|cardinal gems]], along with diamond, ruby, emerald and sapphire. Then enormous deposits were discovered in Brazil, making amethyst the inexpensive semi-precious stone it is today.
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