650,000 Yen Watermelon

This must be one hell of a melon for that much! I wish I could give melons as gifts, it would save a lot of time and money!

Woa… i didn’t know that melons are soooo pricy in Japan that they work as a gift… i tend to have a lot of water- honey-melon in the summer time.
Though this one looks really good, koy is right, i wonder too.

As long as a portion of the proceeds are going toward a good cause, I have no problem with these occasional overpriced sales. We’d be entering questionable territory if the sellers tried marketing these melons at these prices on a regular basis.

It does look pretty delicious, though. I still want to try a square watermelon just for the novelty of it.

it somehow shows how Japan has become so futuristic!
that fruits like melons wud cost 650,000 yen in like 50 years

It ought to have benefits like curing cancer or making me grow a couple inches taller if it costs that much for a single fruit.

The melon costs so much becuase 1. It is a very rare type of watermelon ~ The black rind is an unusual color, and it is very thick, making the melon a good keeper after it’s been picked, and 2. The flesh and taste of the inside is described as “unsurpassed.” This strain of melon has a sugar rating (called “blix”) of 13. Most melons rank from 10-11, with a few of the “sugar baby” varieties rating a 12.

But that only justifies the “regular price” of about $200 USD for one.
The auction price of $6,100 USD (about ¥160,000) is NOT outrageous, as it is a form of farming subsidy. The year’s harvest for these melons is estimated to be about 9,000 through a growing season that will last until about October. The first harvest of 65 melons had been completed, and there was an auction of 15 of those melons. The one that sold for $6K was considered to be the “cream of the crop,” and was the FIRST melon of the auction. It was “perfect.” Just as gift giving shows wealth and success, so does being the “first” at anything. The monies from the auction support the Touma Agricultural CoOp, so it is very much a “charity” auction. The high amount purchased the “best of the best” of the First Harvest of these rare and exotic melons, gaining the buyer great status (although his plans are to now auction the melon on the Internet), helped raise some good money for the farmers, and certainly gained the Touma region and its rare watermelons a great deal of publicity ~ world wide! This will, in turn, make their special melons that much more desirable to be purchased and given as gifts.

The largest melon of this harvest was 23 pounds (really pushing the envelope for this strain), and was shipped to Tokyo directly following the auction, where it is now in the window of a Tokyo Department store, with an asking price of $5,945 USD (such a bargain!). At this stage, profiteering is kicking in, but again, the prestige of giving such a gift in Japan has its own value independent of the actual worth of a somewhat unique piece of fruit…