US$3,500 White Lake USB Memory Golden Stick

The luxury goods market exists because people will always enjoy having exquisite objects, showing their status and wealth and expressing their individuality. That’s why people will pay hundreds of dollars for a cigarette lighter, thousands of dollars for a pen, and tens of thousands of dollars for a watch. So it was inevitable that when flash drives became personal, that we’d see an upmarket version, similar to the Vertu range of high end mobile phones. Flash drive manufacturers White Lake have created a top-of-the range USB flash drive named the Golden Stick which will be showcased at CEBIT next week. The Golden Stick is made of 14 carat gold with five embedded diamonds, though you can have it in 18 carat gold if you wish, but it’ll cost more, and if you think the diamonds are a bit gauche, you can leave them out and reduce the price from EUR 2,950 (US$3,550) to EUR 2,400 (US$2,885). We’re not so sure about making top shelf items in the rapidly moving technology fields – having a 4GB Golden Stick might not be so cool this time next year when everyone else has 16GB.

'This product will open new markets for us,' says White Lake owner Rob van Berkom. 'We have sold huge amounts of personalised USB stick with logo's over the past year. Our customers used them as a give-away. Some of them asked us for a more exclusive product line. This stick meets their demand, so we expect to sell quite a few of them.'

The USB Stick is hand made and was designed by the famous Dutch goldsmith Erwin de Vroome. Every USB stick can be adjusted to the customers wishes.