MARKET VALUES // WHISKY
THE WARM GLOW OF WHISKY
Quality Scotch whisky is still affordable and is becoming ever more collectable, and McTear’s Auctioneers will tell you, it’s a shrewd investment. By Eva-Luise Schwarz
passed down from elderly relatives, as was the case with the Pattisons. The story of the Pattison Crisis is notorious among the Scotch whisky industry. At the end of the nineteenth century, the Pattison brothers, who were part owners of the Glenfarclas distillery, spent thousands of pounds on their thriving business—a pyramid scheme that collapsed after only a few years, with the Pattisons ending up in prison. What remained was their whisky, which provided stock for 20 years to come. Pattison’s ‘The Royal Golden Perfection’ Scotch Whisky was auctioned in July 2011, the label bearing the motto ‘animo non astutia’ (by courage not by craft). It reached £1900 at auction. Other bottles are from people who have collected with a view to investing, and they brought them to the market simply because it’s a good time. Stephen McGinty, whisky expert at McTear’s, thinks whisky is definitely a collector’s dream: ‘The whisky market in general is looking good at the moment. If you have an unusual item, you cannot really go wrong. In the past few years we have bought items from New York and from Japan, but recently we are becoming more aware of an emerging Indian market, as the Indian middle classes are drinking more whisky, which is boosting the collecting market.’ As well as being a good time to sell, it is also a good time to be
T
holding on to your whisky rarities. For several reasons, whisky is a safer bet than wine. With whisky, a single bottle can be of great value, often because only a hundred bottles have ever been produced. McGinty says: ‘The smaller the quantity, the higher the likelihood of the bottles increasing in value in the medium term. Also, the spirit in wine decreases and the wine vintages can become declassified. But whisky will stay more or less the same in 20-30 years’ time.’ Furthermore, unlike wine, the storage for whisky is easy and uncomplicated. Another success story at McTear’s auction in July was that of the now closed Brora whisky distillery. The auction lot consisted of a 30-year-old
he July auction at McTear’s Auctioneers in Scotland was a thriving affair, with hammer prices totalling £92,000 plus for a sale of just under 500 lots of rare and collectable whisky. The bottles mainly came from individuals—many of them
These three bottles, the MACALLAN Fine Oak 21-year-old single highland Scotch whisky, and two MACALLAN 1983 single highland malt whisky bottles aged 18 years, realised £300 at auction.
‘Whisky is a safer bet than wine. With whisky, a single bottle can be of great value, often because only a hundred bottles have ever been produced.’
single malt whisky, 70cl, 52.4% volume, and a 25-year-old single malt whisky, 70cl, 56.3%. Both bottles are in tubed packaging, an important factor for whisky connoisseurs, because with a rarity like that, there can be a decrease in value if it isn’t in its original packaging. What makes a bottle even more collectable is when it doesn’t have a bottle number, something most unusual. In the case of Brora, the distillery produced rare malts in very small and limited editions—and as they are no longer produced, the potential for investment is huge. Therefore it is no wonder that it exceeded its estimate of £100-200 when it reached £340 at auction.
www.artsandcollections.com
COLLECTIONS INTERNATIONAL 25
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100