Let’s start with the bad news: the damage on this item is US$850, or NZ$1,350.

For that money, you could buy an old car, maybe a mid-80s Falcon with over 200 on the clock. Or you could treat yourself to this extraordinarily beautiful book easel.

The AG1 Adjustable Desktop Easel, as it is properly known, was born in 1998. Robert Martin Designs, a furniture company based in New York’s Brooklyn Navy Yard, designed it as a birthday present for Agnes Gund, the then President of the Museum of Modern Art.

The AG1 is crafted from aluminium and wenge, a straight-grained, dark brown heartwood from west Africa. Wenge is an interesting wood, with an unusually coarse texture that makes it extremely difficult to shape or sand. The wood is also toxic: its bark is ground into a powder to stupefy fish for harvest.

This easel is probably too flash for your dog-eared copy of the Edmonds Cookery Book. But it’s perfect for displaying your mint edition of Bateman's luscious New Zealand Historical Atlas.

Curious? The AG1 is available from the New York purveyor of industrial design, Moss. And look at it another way: that $1,350 ticket is the same as 18 months of Sky Sports and Movies.

I know which I’d rather have.