Sticker Shock! 3-Letter Norwegian Country Code Domain Commands Over $700,000 In Year's Highest Reported Sale

by Ron Jackson
  

Who would spend that kind of money on a 3-letter acronym in a relatively unknown extension? If you said only the government would throw money around like that, you get a gold star! The Norwegian government is starting a new bureau next fall called Ny Arbeids og Velferdsforvaltning (which translates roughly to New Work and Welfare Administration), hence the desire to acquire the NAV acronym that had been owned by a Norwegian architectural firm.

3.5 million Norwegian kroner was paid for the domain with another 25% VAT tax tacked on to make the total expenditure 4.375 million kroner. The sale was almost $100,000 higher than the year's previous YTD Chart leader, ON.com, which went for $635,000 in March. It is a fitting main entree for the incredible smorgasbord of sales we will be bringing you in this report. We have twice the usual number of sales to cover since we were on a rare hiatus last week. As you probably noticed, there was no column last week because we were busy covering the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West conference in Las Vegas. Our complete wrap up of that event will be published on our home page Thursday night, May 11 and you can also see a sneak preview in our new May newsletter.

Some major sales news also came out of the that conference. In the biggest live domain auction ever held, $2.1 million worth of domains were sold in just three hours! The headliner was the $450,000 sale of Sex.net that will be the highest .net sale ever reported if the closing goes smoothly. In a couple of other monster sales, CD.com went for $275,000 and POS.com attracted $250,000. The auction just ended Thursday night (Eastern time, May 4) so payments and transfers still have to be completed. As that happens over the next week or two, the individual domains will become eligible for our charts. In the meantime, here is a list of every domain that sold at the historic T.R.A.F.F.I.C. West auction. 

We can add that some even larger sales were being hammered out privately at T.R.A.F.F.I.C. We know of a $1.6 million agreement for a two-letter .com and the parties involved indicated that they may release the name once the transaction is completed.

The #2 domain on our expanded Big Board, Jail.com, was sold for $111,100 in a silent auction conducted by Moniker.com at the Domain Roundtable conference in Seattle two weeks ago. GreatDomains followed with #3 CollectionAgency.com at $85,000 and SnapNames.com was next in line thanks to the $75,805 sale of Favorite.com. Sedo, who racked up three Top Ten entries, scored with #5 Cancha.com ("court" or "sports field" in Spanish) at €54,075 ($68,842). Canada's Shaun Pilford sold #6 USCredit.com for $45,000 through BigTicketDomains.com (Shaun is also the guy who plunked down $250,000 for POS.com at the T.R.A.F.F.I.C. auction).

All told 35 domains sold for at least five figures over the past 14 days. Seven of those were country code domains and .net snared a pair. Here's a look at the complete all extension leader board for the two weeks ending Sunday, May 7:

You no doubt noticed that second Norwegian domain on our new list, #21 SMK.no at $16,411. Once again, the Norwegian government had a hand in that deal as the domain was purchased by the prime minister's office. Another noteworthy ccTLD sale was BusinessChannel.tv, a name that tuned in $10,000 at Afternic.com in the year's highest reported .tv sale.

.Com Supporting Cast

SnapNames placed 9 domains on our new leader board and had dozens of additional standout sales including Trixie.com at $9,655 and Maori.com at $9,300. They also topped off FuelTank.com with $7,800, attracted $7,200 for HillaryDuff.com and collected $7,000 for eIncentives.com. Other winners included Londonderry.com ($6,650), ACCBasketball.com ($6,600) and Hypertec.com ($6,500). WinterBoots.com went for $6,360, Hong-Kong.com kicked in $6,356 and ScrapbookStore.com pasted up $6,322.

Also at SnapNames, RVCompanion.com made $6,031, JobCareer.com clocked out with $5,966 and SearchForJobs.com found $5,923. AlpharettaRealEstate.com closed at $5,800, xFax.com fetched $5,600 and WebEncyclopedia.com looked up $5,500. Robotix.com stamped out $5,250, USprint.com sprung $5,101 and TrackSuits.com zipped up $5,100. CheapFuton.com chipped in $5,100, NUJ.com commanded $5,023 and Lockjaw.com landed $5,022.

SnapNames had 77 more sales ranging from $2,000 to nearly $5,000. You can check those out in the table below:

Back at Sedo, Emigo.com contributed £5,000 ($9,300), Iconoclast.com added $9,000 and 598.com dialed up €6,500 ($8,275). KeyTurn.com tallied €5,500 ($7,002), Emwave.com went for $6,600 and VortalSearch.com sold for $6,500. An IDN, Natación.com ("swimming" in Spanish), netted €4,500 ($5,729) and DailyGame.com drew the same price.

Also at Sedo, Elkor.com booked $5,101, BlackCherry.com brought $5,000 and eDominion.com deposited $4,799. TV24.com clicked on $4,500, AceGolf.com tapped in $4,300, HedgeFundServices.com cornered $4,000 and InsuranceSavings.com returned $3,900.

At Afternic, Music-Lyrics.com landed $7,450, PCRemoteAccess.com connected with $6,000 and AffectionDatingServices.com attracted $4,350. ToolPlanet.com took in $3,900 and Evesta.com corralled $3,222 while NuclearPhysics.com and F2F.com contributed $3,000 each. Afternic's hit list also included Istoria.com ($2,800), Thoughtcast.com ($2,778) and StellaDigital.com ($2,650). Three other domains, REXD.com, NNBD.com and ASKW.com went for $2,000 each.

At IDNForums.com, another IDN,  髪.com (kanji for "hair" in both Japanese and Chinese), sold for $6,000. At Enom's Club Drop, SkiSuit.com looked stylish at $5,100, OSHI.com sold for $4,600 and Fasta.com fetched $3,300. Elsewhere, Drop Wizard sold NewOrleansCasino.com for $4,300 and Bank-Loans.com for $1,500 while SearchDomainsForSale.com bagged $2,000 for BorderTraffic.com.

Global Contenders (.biz, .info, .net & .org)