4^th February 2010

I spent all day yesterday at McTear’s auctioneers here in Glasgow where they were holding an auction of rare and collectable whiskies. There appeared to be collectors from Europe in the room judging by the voices and I thought I recognised some faces from other events I have attended.

I had nothing in the auction - my main reason was to see if anything I also own went for a good price. It’s all going for auction when I am old and poor to augment my pension fund. I should probably just drink it as I am always telling clients, readers and audiences that it is not for investing in – it’s for drinking and enjoying, However, you can’t work in this industry for a long time without squirreling away some interesting bottles, probably thinking you’ll get round to drinking them one of these days.

Apart from a rather chilly saleroom (to keep us all awake?) it was an interesting day.

I’m not sure how things are going in other markets but it seemed to me yesterday that the recession is still affecting such sales. Most items went for a little less than or within their sale estimates. The star, big price items fetched much less than expected. For example a half bottle size of 1900 Springbank drawn off in 1927 was estimated at £4,000 - £6,000 but fetched only £2,200. There were a few surprises at some lots going for much more than estimated – a bottle of 19 year old Rosebank from the Rare Malts Selection sold for £500 against an estimate of £160 and a 28 year old Glenury Royal for £460 instead of £180. Andrew Bell, McTear’s whisky man, said he was generally happy with the pricing and pointed out that some things go lower if there are quite a number of them. A case in point yesterday was Ardbeg 17 Year Old. Some people have obviously not yet got round to drinking theirs and have heard it got some reasonable prices at auction. So there were at least half a dozen and the price fetched was, subsequently, lower.  

I have taken the view that I will hang on to my bottles for at least a few years yet. McTear’s are having another sale in early May which I might attend. I’d be interested in hearing of anyone’s whisky auction experiences in US or Canada – or anywhere else for that matter.

 © Caroline Dewar 2010