What's the best prize you've ever won?

$500.

I won it in a raffle for attending a bunch of events at school. It was the best because I won it just in time to spend it all on textbooks. As a business student that was a huge help (seriously, I think the pricing goes, “Well, some of them will get cushy jobs so they’ll be able to pay back the loans they took out to buy this book.”).

2 tickets to a Met game.

I made almost $1000 in the casino playing the roulette & black jack
A big microwave in a raffle
A Gucci tie in a special night sale at the boutique where I normally buy my clothes

Concert tickets, from a radio station, are the most I’ve won as well (Goo Goo Dolls, Blues Travelers, Snow Patrol). Oh yeah, not sure if this counts, but I entered a pool at a remote salmon fishing resort in British Columbia, Canada. There were two prizes: the largest single King Salmon and total weight of King Salmon over the four day fishing period. The resort had assigned me the number 13, but I still entered. Well, I won both competitions with comfortable margins, netting myself about $500. 13 has been my favorite number since, joining my prior favorite, 9.

All I one was a measly $100 savings bond in 8th grade for being the top science student. I don’t even know what to do with it as it sit in the dark chambers of by dresser. Will the bank give me $100 in return for the savings bond?

I brought my daughter to a carnival when she was two, and for the first time I won a little bear that I gave to her – I was so proud and happy to see her squeeze it tight, and it made me feel so ecstatic!

I’ve won a number of things…several sets of concert tickets (Aerosmith & Kiss, Fiona Apple/Damien Rice, Bonnie Raitt/Keb Mo, Rush, Primus, and probably a dozen others), one time I actually won concert tickets, a pre-show dinner, a chance to see the rehearsal, and an autograph session with the band (Jet), I won $50 in a raffle, I’ve won CDs, Cassettes & Records, a couple of board games, some DVDs, a couple of turkeys (yes, Turkeys…I live in Minnesota…home of the meat raffle), restaurant gift certificates, and a few other things. I think my favorite win however is this.

I’m a HUGE fan of the band Queen. Well, unfortunately this was after Freddie Mercury passed away, but it was still cool. I went into a Guitar Center, simply because it was next door to a Hollywood Video and I was renting a movie that night. Well, I saw a big cardboard cutout of guitarist Brian May, they were having a drawing. The grand prize was a copy of Brian May’s newest CD autographed, a copy of the 2 CD set Queen’s Greatest Hits I and II, and a copy of the then newly release compliation “Queen Rocks” also autographed by all three surviving members. I have to imagine I could sell the two autographed CDs for quite a bit, but I’m keeping them. Now that is probably not the largest value prize I’ve ever won…I’d say the highest value was probably the Kiss/Aerosmith tickets, that was probably $200.

Indy318, how long ago did you get the $100 bond. Essentially a $100 bond when they gave it to you was probably “worth” $50. Bonds are sold at double the face value, and mature in about 7 years or so (more or less depending on the series of the bond). If 8th grade was a long time ago, that could be worth several hundred dollars by now. If it was a just a few years ago, might not even be worth $100 yet. To redeem it, just bring it to any bank and they’ll give you cash.

er, I mean at 1/2 the face value, not double…you pay $50 for a $100 bond, and when it “matures” it’s worth face value.

Damn, 8th grade was only 3 and a half years ago. So, I’ll probably get only about $70? Is there a limit as to how much the bond can cash out (lets say I wait 15 years, will I get like $1000?).

A Fluther T-shirt. :)

$750 for a film I entered in a competition.

My mom and I won just shy of $14,000 hitting a trifecta at a horse track in the late 90’s. She picked the horses and I bought the ticket. We actually didn’t even realize we had hit until a little while after the race. That was pretty fun.

I won a lovely gift certificate to a high-end spa for four 1-hour spa treatments just by sitting in the right chair at a work Christmas party (all the chairs had raffle numbers taped to their undersides). I ended up getting a 2-hour massage, a pedicure, and a facial. I’d like another day like that about now.

Indy318,

Actually, I don’t think they double in value anywhere NEAR 7 years anymore, it’s probably significantly longer than that. Essentially, I’d go here:

http://www.savingsbonds.gov/BC/SBCPrice

Get your bond out and enter the information, it will tell you what it’s worth today.

You can redeem a bond as soon as it’s 12 months old, but you’ll only get what it’s worth at that time, not the face value.

Also, if you redeem before the bond is 5 years old, you forfeit the last 3 months’ interest.

I’m also not sure about this last point, but I thought I read something about 30 years being the longest you can hold them.

And even if they did double every 7 years or so, a $100 bond would only be worth $200 after 15 years. It might only be worth $125 in 15 years and maybe about $60 or so now (after you sacrifice 3 months of interest). Check the calculator.

@dalepetrie, thanks for the info because, I would have cashed that in when I open up my bank account. I’m thinking of waiting a few more years before gathering in my harvest.

I won €14,500 on a radio competition where I had to guess five celebs voices.

Indy, no problem. I’d wait at least the 5 years, then see what interest rate you’re getting, you can probably get a better return on your money (or you could just spend it, which would be a lot more fun).

Wow, fabulous! That is a lot of money!

I’ve had relatively bad luck with winning things so the best thing I think I’ve ever won was a couple of Jolly Ranchers in my English class.

@fabulous
Gosh, I could do a lot of things with that prize! amazing!

@bluemukaki: Is the film available online?

Concert tickets to Coldplay and Alanis Morisette. I also won a pair of tickets to Knott’s Scary Farm once.

Remember when Subway was doing that Scratch to Win thing? Or something like that… Well, I won my first mp3 player from that. It was a Creative Zen Micro, 6 GB and I loved it. I now upgraded to another Zen with more gig. I have also recently won a “Lancome” basket from Dillards and an Oral B electric toothbrush raffle from my dentist’s office. That’s about it I think…My favorite from those 3 had to be the Zen of course. Mp3 players were still sorta a new thing and I felt happy owning one which originally cost 235$ for free :)