... People who pay those ridiculous sums for a bottle of whatever are simply being ostentatious, in my opinion...
About forty years ago I had a friend who was a curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC. I once asked him why art collectors would spend such enormous sums on paintings by great artists when one could buy an excellent reproduction for so much less. Most people could never tell the difference anyway. Why spend, say a million bucks or whatever on a Picasso when you could buy an excellent reproduction for, say, a couple of hundred, if not far less?
He thought about it for a bit, and then asked me, "Can you tell the difference between a really good scotch and a cheap one?" I said that I could.
He said, "Well, some people are like that with great art. They can tell the difference between an original and a good copy. And it matters to them."
So, for us, as gun enthusiasts, it's probably similar to why some of us are willing to spend so much for certain firearms. For people who are not into guns, or dislike them, cheap or expensive — a registered magnum or... take your pick — it's just another gun...
Even among us gun lovers, some of us think spending a couple of thousand or more on one gun is just ostentatious. Others love expensive guns so much they'll subsist on instant noodles, scrimp and save, in order to buy them.
Of course, wealthy people just buy whatever they want. Pretty much, anyway.
And, to be fair, I also think it true that conspicuous consumption is also a driver for some of the more foolish among us, whether rich or not.
(Personally, if I'm buying for me, I tend to go with inexpensive liquors, primarily rye. My opinion of myself is already unreasonably high. I don't need to inflate it further by buying expensive liquor!
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