Above is Jaquet Droz's La Machine à Ecrire le Temps, a machine that has taken over ten years to build, and has thousands of moving parts. For those of you who speak French, you already know what it does. For everybody else, the machine does one thing, and one thing only: writes the time.
That's it. When activated, the piece writes the time in hours and minutes, and then spits it out for you. And how much would you expect to pay for this marvel of technology?
How about $342,275? Because that's how much one of these babies costs.
Here's a tip: there's a guy hanging out on 42nd and 5th who has some cheap knock-off La Machine à Ecrire le Temps for sale between 12 and 2pm every day. They only write the hour, but they're about half the price. Tell him Zalben sent you, and you'll get a good deal.
[Via Born Rich]
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