The Real Reason There Was A Bidding War For This Chick-Fil-A Cup

It's a safe bet to say everyone likes to collect stuff. It could be anything from baseball cards, badges, or even a cool rock collection you had as a kid. Underground comix legend Robert Crumb is a well-known collector of old records (via Rolling Stone). Rod Stewart collects model trains and Tom Hanks collects typewriters, per the New York Post. What some collectors value most, however, seem to be the "accidents." The one-in-a-million action figure that came off the factory line with the wrong colors, the toy car with a bad design, the rare PEZ dispenser with the wrong head. Some might see these factory errors as nothing but junk, but others see them as one-of-a-kind valuables.

Take, for example, a Chik-fil-A cup with the red rooster that forms the company's logo accidentally printed on the inside. To a few Chik-fil-A fanatics, this mistake was valuable enough to earn a spot in their collection. On the Reddit forum r/ChikFilA, user eggshi posted a link to an eBay auction where the item that had been listed was an inside-out Chik-fil-A cup from Cartersville, Georgia. This slightly different, albeit unassuming paper cup was sold at an impressive price of $112 dollars and 50 cents. While this is a pretty rare occurrence, this begs the question: What other types of fast-food merchandise have sold for an absurd amount of money?

As a kid, you may remember the thrill of opening your Happy Meal box and pulling out that exciting new toy nestled alongside your nuggets and fries. Sure, it may have been a piece of plastic that provided you some small amusement, but you probably didn't think it would be valuable any time soon, right? According to Mental Floss, there's a good selection of Happy Meal toys, from Monsters Inc. toys to little Potato Head Kids, that can net you from a few bucks to almost $400. Meanwhile, Burger King has a few toy valuables out on the market from Nintendo, Star Wars, and oddly enough, Beetlejuice (via The Gamer). Burger King also has a niche market of collectors who will pay some decent pocket change to collect vintage glasses — back when fast food outlets still sold glasses, of course (via MeTV). 

Former employees are also more than willing to profit off their old work place in some cases. A McDonald's apron from the days when the burger chain tried and failed to sell their infamous McPizzas (via Wide Open Eats) is currently on sale on eBay for $165.00, just in case you want to own a piece of Mickey Dee's history.