A microscopic, knockoff Louis Vuitton handbag smaller than a grain of salt just sold for $63,750

• A typical Louis Vuitton handbag can set you back a few thousand dollars, but this microscopic knockoff is even pricier.
• A product of Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF, the neon handbag just sold at auction for $63,750.
• It’s smaller than a grain of sea salt and comes with its own microscope to view it, MSCHF says.

A Louis Vuitton-embossed handbag just fetched more than $60,000 at auction — but it’s way smaller than you’d expect and not even the real thing.

The knockoff, a neon yellowish-green handbag, sold for $63,750, more than quadruple the starting bid of $15,000.

The bag is “smaller than a grain of sea salt and narrow enough to pass through the eye of a needle,” according to an Instagram post by its maker, Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF.

Kevin Wiesner, MSCHF’s chief creative officer, told The New York Times that the collective hadn’t obtained permission from Louis Vuitton to use the design. LVMH, which owns Louis Vuitton, did not immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

The bag was made using “a stereolithographic process commonly used for making tiny mechanical biotech structures,” according to its auction listing, and comes with a microscope featuring a built-in digital display of the bag for viewing.

“As a once-functional object like a handbag becomes smaller and smaller its object status becomes steadily more abstracted until it is purely a brand signifier,” MSCHF said in the listing.

“Previous small leather handbags have still required a hand to carry them — they become dysfunctional, inconveniences to their ‘wearer,'” the listing says. “Microscopic Handbag takes this to its full logical conclusion. A practical object is boiled down into jewelry, all of its putative function evaporated; for luxury objects, useability is the angels’ share.”

MSCHF has made headlines in recent years for other tongue-in-cheek stunt projects, including Lil Nas X’s controversial “Satan shoes,” a double-sided sneaker that can be put on both ways, “Eat the Rich” popsicles shaped like tech billionaires Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg, and an AI-powered website that ranks and matches you with others based on your “hotness.”