The $200,000 Sale of MonaLisa.com That Almost Never Happened

Sedo just announced (via DNW) the successful brokerage sale of the domain name MonaLisa.com for $200,000. The domain name is currently registered to its Domain Transfer email, so I am fairly certain the deal is nearly completed.

If you have a look at the archives in DNForum, there’s a thread started by the “mysterious” Kuwaiti domain investor, elequa (also known as Thunayan Khalid Al-Ghanim of Future Media Architects). In the thread, Thunayan mentioned that he was bidding on the domain name at “NW,” a Dotster subsidiary, although he did not win. At that time, the domain name sold for around $15,000. Had Thunayan prevailed in the auction, the domain name would never have been resold, as his company does not sell any of its domain names.

Funny enough, someone who goes by the nickname “DomainGoon” (sarcastically) asked, “the real question is, how many years would take to make $15,000 back using that domain?” I guess the answer is 7 years, for more than 1,000% return on that $15,000 investment.

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PS: Thunayan – call me… I will be in your neck of the woods in 10 days. 🙂

Elliot Silver
Elliot Silver
About The Author: Elliot Silver is an Internet entrepreneur and publisher of DomainInvesting.com. Elliot is also the founder and President of Top Notch Domains, LLC, a company that has closed eight figures in deals. Please read the DomainInvesting.com Terms of Use page for additional information about the publisher, website comment policy, disclosures, and conflicts of interest. Reach out to Elliot: Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn

9 COMMENTS

  1. Nice trade for sure, now the question is… can you sale enough Mona Lisa souvenirs online to recover $200k 🙂

    If traffic is good it will come down to conversion ratios and margins on souvenirs. maybe this isnt the idea at all but after that Im clueless.

  2. Bidding on that domain, stopping before it hit 10k, I thought the domain sold closer to 20k, though NOT more than 20k.

  3. What is the purpose of buying a domain name if you don’t intend to do anything with it or sell it at a later date? Kind of a stupid business plan if you ask me.

  4. Why woukd some of you be asking why somebody would spend $200,000 for MonnaLisa.com? Ask yourself this same question—why would someone spend $500 million for a painting? It’s the same reason I registered KingTut.com and GreatGatsby.com. Everyone of you have heard of them. They’re not just great names, they are great addresses. That’s why you’re in this business—to understand their value and why people buy them. That’s how you make money and make this industry a business and not a hobby.

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