Why would anyone pay two dollars and forty nine cents for a fake red rose in a glass tube? It has nothing to do with the red rose (you figured that), and everything to do with that little glass tube. By cutting up a brillo pad, you can turn that glass tube into a crack pipe.
Proof:
A friend of mine works at a gas station and sells three or four of those things a night. Once a guy asked how much one was before he bought it, and my friend answered: "Two dollars and forty nine cents." The guy made a face and exclaimed something like "Wow, that's a lot of money," to which my friend replied, "Hey, love ain't cheap."
"Fuck love, this is for smokin' cocaine!" said the guy, as he scooped up two dollars and fifty one cents in change and a red rose in a glass tube. He dropped the rose on the pavement on his way back to his car.
NOTE: Crack is basically a smoke-able form of cocaine.