Got $6M to spare?
If you 've got a spare $6 million lying around and a serious jones for high risk, there's a daguerreotype of a young Ulysses S. Grant for auction on eBay that's waiting just for you. Starting bid is $6 million, so who knows how high it could go? No bids, yet, probably for good reason. The highest comparable sale I could find on Google was a collection of 250 early American prints by the team of Southworth & Hawes that was auctioned by Sotheby's for $3.3 million in 1999. I don't feel confident that this is actually the record for photography sales, so if you know of anything higher, leave a comment.

Update: the auction ended with no bidders. Good thing. But, amusingly, eBay shills their financing plan with the enticing come-on "Only $250,002 per month."