Marketplace

Prada puts its stiletto'd foot down

A Prada spokesperson today said the Milan-based luxury brand is not for sale, following some high-fashion drama to the contrary. The Sunday Times of London reported that British millionaire Richard Caring and a couple private equity funds were in talks with the fashion house said to be worth at least $3.5 billion.

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This one goes out to the Big Mac . . .

This week, a new museum opened near Pittsburgh and it's dedicated to a sandwich. The Big Mac and its two all-beef patties, special sauce, lettuce, cheese, pickles, onions on a sesame seed bun is 40 years old. It was created in 1967 by Jim Delligatti, who owned a McDonald's in Uniontown, Pennsylvania. The sandwich cost 45 cents back then. Today, Americans eat 550 million Big Macs a year. That equates to about 300 billion calories.

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Strike talks resume on several stages

Striking TV and movie writers are set to resume talks with studios and networks today. The Writers Guild of America went on strike November 5 over payment for work that airs on the Internet. Writers want more money when movies and shows are sold to sites like Apple's iTunes. Talks for another showbiz strike are already underway. Broadway stagehands resumed negotiations with theater owners and producers yesterday -- 26 theaters have been dark for more than two weeks. It's estimated the Broadway strike has cost New York City $2 million a day.

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Start spreading the news: Broadway's back

Theaters are racing to reopen for business today after stagehands and producers reached a tentative agreement to end a 19-day strike. The settlement came last night after three days of marathon bargaining sessions. The strike has cost producers and New York City millions of dollars.

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Meant for more than your brown bag

George Bernard Shaw once said, "whiskey is liquid sunshine." That kind of sun will be lighting up Christie's auction house in New York this weekend. Christie's will hold its first liquor auction since Prohibition. Some rare whiskies are expected to go for up to $30,000 a bottle.

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Art is making money

The financial markets might be struggling, but the art market is doing quite all right. The fall auction season in New York broke records: $71 million for an Andy Warhol, $33 million for a Matisse.
One November sale took in almost $400 million.

The weak dollar is partially responsible for this. In the last years, more wealthy buyers from Russia, China, India and the Middle East have decided to spend their millions in art.

One thing to be cautious about: Generally, the art market trails the financial markets by about six months. So the party might be over soon.

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A sale that's very hush-hush

The world's largest collection of silent movies is up for sale. The Rohauer Collection has 700 silent and classic films put together over three decades. Some of the films feature stars such as Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. The collection was bought in 1995. Now the company that owes it, Douris U.K., needs to raise cash for its creditors. It already signed a distribution deal for 21 of the films with a French company for $500,000.

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It slices, it dices, it guides your way home

The Ginsu knife cut its way into American culture in 1978 with a TV informercial. Rhode Island native Ed Valenti is one of the brains behind the Ginsu. He and his partner gave the cheap serrated knife a faux-Japanese name and the rest was history. Now a Rhode Island lawmaker wants to name a quarter-mile road in the state, "Ginsu Way."

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Longest cab ride ever

A New York cabbie got some unique recognition this week. The city's Taxi and Limousine Commission awarded Douglas Guldeniz the "Extra Mile Award." That's because he went thousands of extra miles for a couple in Queens. The Turkish immigrant drove Bob and Betty Matas to their new retirement home in Arizona last April. The idea came up when the couple joked they should cab it to Arizona since they never learned to drive. They negotiated a flat rate around $3,000. The metered rate would've been $5,000

Betty Matas died just a few months after making the trip. She was 75. The trio turned a lot of heads crossing almost a dozen states to make the 2,500 mile trip to Sedona in a yellow cab.

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Just don't expect it to make you a better writer

Here's how someone chose to spend $850,000: the purchase of the desk and chair used by Charles Dickens to write "Great Expectations." Christie's auction house says the buyer of the mahogany desk and walnut chair claims to have made his fortune in the psychic readings business. The furniture was handed down through the Dickens family.

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Lunching with the Buffett

Here's a power lunch for you: A Chinese business man agreed to pay $2.11 million for lunch with Warren Buffett. Every year, the oracle of Omaha auctions off a lunch with himself. Proceeds go to the Glide Foundation for San Francisco's poor and homeless.

This year, Zhao Danyang won the auction conducted on e-Bay. Zhao Danyang is a general manager at the Pure Heart China Growth Investment Fund. E-Bay says this year's lunch was one of the most expensive items ever sold on the site. No word yet where the men will be dining.

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He's a Schwinner

Remember banana bikes? The oversized seats, the colorful prints, the wide handle bars. A Virginia man found one of the first bikes made with a banana seat at his corner bike shop. Tom Mault bought the rare 1963 Sing-Ray for $350. Now he's getting offers of $100,000 for the Schwinn. Mault says he started collecting bicycles because his parents couldn't afford to buy him one as a child.

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