World's Most Expensive Business Cards

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Have you ever wondered how much first impressions count in creating business contacts and hence business opportunity? Have you ever put thought into how you do a handshake, how your table manners are, how you dress to impress (and to fit the occasion) or how your face loos like and what a smile can do for you? I am sure you did, because, even if you are not a freelance and even if you don't work for a brand, first of all, you should be your own brand and building "YOU" takes time and effort.

So let's say you have given all the above a thought - and you meet someone really influential or someone you want to do business with...or just someone who you admire a lot and you want to stay in touch with - and you want to introduce yourself - and then you pull out this business card from Black Astrum: a bespoke diamond-encrusted statement business card - which come in sets of 25, 50 and 100 cards, a full set containing around 30 carats of diamonds.

Now this is a card that can say something about you without any words: it is a signature card targeting the ultra high net worth individuals of the world, which you get access to by invitation only (so privileged high net worth people), with an average price of around 1000 pound sterling per card - which the individual just gives to introduce himself - so he puts more accent on other values than money (money is easily spent) but still wants to make a statement. It also tells about the importance the person receiving it has to the owner of the cards.

And it has just been launched in London. So when will you receive it from someone? Or when will you use it to make a statement?

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Milestone

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It is the time when a rare pink diamond will be auctioned by Sotheby's (16th of November). It is the time when Bottega Veneta launches iPod and iPad cases. And because I recently spoke about Berlin and how much I recommend this city (check the entry here), there's also a news about Germany's capital city: their hotel boom picks up speed. For coffee lovers there's the news, that Starbucks is to be open on Royal Carribean Cruise Ships.

But tonight something great happened, I have reached 2000 unique readers (from the time I have added the flag counter onto my blog). All these are from 64 countries, of which 35 from Europe. The top 10 countries of viewers are Romania, Germany, the USA, the UK, France, Monaco, Austria, Canada, Italy and Spain. The latest flag added was that of South Korea.

I want to thank you all for the support and I hope you continue reading and making my blog known around the world. A big thank you to all the bloggers who have promoted my writings in a way or another.

The Most Expensive iPad

Just a short blog entry today, but again about a "most expensive" item. I stumbled upon the most expensive Ipad today. I was not sure if this would be a useful, at least I did not see much sense in it, especially after I saw it at one of my work colleagues. But it's the I-craze, so one has to take things as they are and consider such gadgets useful. One of them costs on the German market a bit under 800 €. The front is a touch screen, not much one could do about it, but turn it around and you find a back side which one, for example the goldsmith Katherine Hughes, thinks you could transform. She used gold, a lot of it! The material which is now the back case of the most expensive iPad is made out of 2,1kgs of 22 ct gold. The apple logo is also bling-bling-ish, with 53 diamonds of totally 25,5 carats. So now, after all this gold-smith-creation has been done, you get an average new gadget with basic functions for a stunning price of more than 152.000€.

If you ask me, here is an example where an iPad has been integrated into a kitchen, lost therefore its portability, but is definitely more useful than the one presented above. What do you think???