Now that my fort's developed some more, here's my absolute best, which will never be topped:
"This is a cedar puzzlebox. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is encircled with bands of cedar."
Took only one cedar log to make, is worth 2400 dwarfbucks, and the best part? It's named "'Kooks II' Shipink". As in, after its creator. Granted, its creator was probably not even two years old at the time and had a broken arm, so I probably shouldn't expect wonders.
But, seriously, right now my best worthwise is Clawlauded the Stirred Banner, worth 94,800 DB. It was my third artifact.
"This is a lead spear. All craftsdwarfship is of the highest quality. It is studded with silver and encircled with bands of lead, ruby, and pike leather. It menaces with spikes of lead and giant cave spider silk."
In terms of coolness, there's the recently-made Pointyold, worth 50,400 DB and the result of a possession, I think, but still cool for the images. Screencap
here because it's a bit long.
Triflingmatch is a boot that menaces with a lot of spikes (some fishbone), is covered in the blood and vomit of goblins, kobolds, monkeys, and dwarves, and is equipped by a Champion Founder Wrestler who 1) was the first dwarf in the fort to gain a title and 2) can crush people's spines by sneezing on them. Tun is the current queen and is rather boring aside from that. Belinzy would go insane sometime in summer 206 and have to be put down by a Champion wrestler and a lot of trigger-happy marksdwarves, but this is still the only record on my artifacts of my dwarves killing things.