Rubik’s Cube top cultural icon

A whole generation may have passed between the craze for an irritating, twistable cube and an angst-filled teenage wizard, but both have secured their place among the world’s most popular items.

The Rubik’s Cube and Harry Potter have made it into the Wall Street Journal’s top 10 “Best Selling Products of All Time”. However, the relatively simple premise of both is a rarity in a list dominated by the technological.

Since Hungarian Erno Rubik created the prototype of the “Magic Cube” in 1974, 350m of them have been sold. The wizard has magicked up a bigger total, with JK Rowling’s seven installments selling a total of 450m copies.