$500,000 Halftone Prints Made from 13,000 Platinum Beads

Do you have half a million dollars burning a hole in your pocket and the desire to purchase an extravagant portrait? Well, today is your lucky day, because Platinum Sphere Portraits is just what you’re looking for.

Starting at a cool $500K for a 23×32-inch “print,” these portraits are made out of tiny spheres of one of the most expensive metals on Earth: Platinum. One kilo of it to be precise, which is worth around $47,000 on its own.

Arranged one-by-one, 13,000 platinum spheres ranging in size from 2mm to 5mm end up creating a half-tone portrait fit for a space-age king:

However, it’s worth pointing out that those of you wanting to get your latest favorite shot turned into a platinum masterpiece won’t have much control over the process.

You get a half-hour meeting with the company, after which they will assign a photographer to come shoot you for a couple of hours. From there, the image is digitized, hand assembled with the 13,000 platinum spheres, and you end up with a halftone portrait worth a whopping half million dollars… or so they would like you to believe.

There’s no doubt this is a ridiculous luxury that 99% of the world would never even think about. In essence, it seems like this print is meant to be one hell of an expensive conversation piece — although, to be fair, they do offer to send you a complimentary video of the print-making process.

What are your thoughts on these ultra-luxury pieces of art? Criticism is to be expected, but I’m curious to see if anyone can see some reason behind these bank bruising behemoths.