Forget boxed chocolates and grocery store flowers. Here are the kinds of presents the super rich could be using to make an impression on their loved ones this Valentine's Day.
Martini on the 'rock'
An unforgettable, made-to-order cocktail is available at the Algonquin Hotel's Blue Bar, though only if you know to ask for it, since it's not listed on the menu. The price starts at $10,000 per drink and requires 72-hours notice so that the hotel jeweler can create the perfect garnish: A custom diamond ring.
Couture lingerie
Luna Mae London's gold-studded, hand-made undergarments are so exclusive you can't buy them in stores. Interested in paying four-figures to flatter your figure? Arrange a private fitting in a big city luxury hotel — if you can secure a recommendation from a VIP.
Caviar facial
Switzerland's La Prairie day spa offers guests a $1,000 white caviar illuminating facial that uses a serum derived from sturgeon eggs. The 90-minute treatment, intended to keep skin looking youthful, is favored, the spa director claims, by royalty.
A 16-carat pink diamond ring
This rare, record-setting, rose-colored ring, which features one huge diamond ringed by multitudes of tiny ones and looks like the hand-jewelry version of the necklace dropped to the bottom of the sea in "Titanic," recently sold at a Christie's auction for $28.5 million.
The world's most expensive chocolate
This hand-made dessert is sourced from a rare kind of Ecuadorean cacao once thought to be extinct and aged for 18 months in a 50-year-old French cognac barrel. It costs $345 for less than two ounces. Only 100 bars are made each year. Each arrives wrapped in silver paper inside a wooden box that also includes special tweezers, so that the chocolate need never be touched by human hands.
120-carat diamond earrings
$17.6 million bought one lucky auction winner a pair of record-setting diamond drop earrings which, between them, represent 120 carats. They've attained the moniker "the mirror of love" and went home in a jewelry box that alone cost $25,000.
