At today's Phillips de Pury & Co. auction, Now: Art of the 21st century, handbag designer (and possibly former artist) Damien Hirst is back on the scene with a major auction house. A year ago, he divested his collection of his own work, ostensibly sensing that the market for him was about to crash (which, in fact, it did). Phillips de Pury isn't making any big bets today with Hirst, though. For now, it has two lithographs of Hirst's famous(ly expensive) skull up for sale. For the Love of God, Laugh; The Diamond Skull is listed at £10,000 - £15,000.

Peter Fuss, on the other hand, seems to have nailed it. His piece, For the Laugh of God,, shown above, is also up for grabs. It's a knockoff skull, listed for a little more than half the price of the lithos (£6,000 - £8,000), but the title conveys the spirit. Created when Hirst was peddling the original skull for the princely sum of £50 million ($100 million at the time), For the Laugh of God was originally offered for £100, as a way to help Britain reclaim this "treasure."

The blog "Modelator," which covers Polish art, observed in June 2007, "Our British friends, we are coming to rescue you! Like the cheap Polish labour well known to you, Polish artist Peter Fuss wishes to relieve the British nation from such a great expense." This was in response to Guardian journalist Jonathan Jones, who declared, "We must buy the diamond skull for Britain."

While Hirst's skull cost a fortune even in materials, For the Laugh of God consists of close to 9,900 pieces of glass made to look like diamonds and entailed an investment of £250 and 18 hours. Now, it's up for more than 40 times that amount, while Hirst is reduced to selling posters.

Some may think that skulls are best saved for Halloween, and while it's true that you can't go wrong with a little bit of the macabre in October, the skull trend is still going strong, so they're fine for the holiday season, too. Deakin & Francis Skull Cufflinks are handmade in England of solid, 18-karat yellow gold. Intriguingly, the tiny skulls have movable jaws. Try to avoid the temptation to play with them like little ventriloquist dummies during boring meetings - or at least practice silent laughter first. Price: $3,900.

To take any Halloween celebrations to the next level, you'll need to find some really killer decorations. Instead of searching to find natural-looking props at the party store, why not seek out something a bit more realistic? Skulls Unlimited has a bit selection of real ("natural") and cast bones, human and animal, rare and common. A hippopotamus skull ($2,400) would make a big impression and some little vampire bat skulls ($49) would fit the theme. For something really creepy, there is a human skull with bullet wounds in it, but a grab-bag of assorted animal bones could go a long way at a party.

[via cribcandy]

With Halloween coming up, not to mention all the other skull stuff that we've seen lately, it seemed worthwhile to mention this SIGG Skull Bottle. The Swiss-made aluminum bottle is unbreakable, very lightweight and 100% recyclable. The 24-oz. bottles are taste-neutral, so you can store any type of beverage in them. One final feature is that the skull glows in the dark, which might not be a selling point for a lot of adults, but would definitely make it a more appealing Halloween "treat" if you wanted to give the kids something other than candy. Price: $20.

[via The Cool Hunter]

British artist Damien Hirst recently revealed his newest project, the most expensive work of art ever created, to the Observer. It is a life-size human skull, cast in platinum and covered in about 8,500 diamonds. The largest diamond on the piece will be a 50-karat diamond in the center of the skull. The total value of the materials involved in making the skull, entitled "For the Love of God," will be £8-10 million, but the retail value of the finished piece could be up to £50 million. His motivation for undertaking such an extravagant project? Hirst said "I just want to celebrate life by saying to hell with death."

The piece will not be unveiled until 2007.