The original Cowardly Lion costume from the movie The Wizard of Oz sold to a collector over eBay earlier this month for $700,000. The 65-year old costume is made of real lion pelts and, unlike some of the other costumes from the film, only one was made. It was nearly forgotten about until 1970, when it was discovered among some other old costumes. The most recent owner had the costume restored, mounted on a flexible steel armature and displayed in a diorama depicting the yellow brick road.

[via wired]

The next best thing to being James Bond is living like him. No, we're not talking about facing off with bad guys and thwarting the plans of those bent on world domination (unless you really want to). We're talking about taking vacations in some of the spots around the world that were, in some way, touched by Bond. Forbes Traveler has picked out their top Bond vacation destinations and, as big James Bond fans, we're ready to pack our bags. The list includes:

• The Fleming House in Jamaica, where Ian Fleming wrote 17 Bond novels.
• James Bond Island in Thailand was made famous by The Man With The Golden Gun, but is just a hop, skip and a jump from where The Beach was filmed, too.
• The Stoke Park Club in the UK was the location for many Bond scenes, both when Sean Connery and Pierce Brosnan played Bond.
• GoldenEye fans might jump at the chance to recreate the opening scene of the Bond film by taking a Bungee Jump from the Verzasca Dam in Switzerland -- the highest commercial bungee jump in the world,

*Note: Martinis and Bond girls not included.