Once again proof positive that wealth and insanity are not mutually exclusive. A NOT full set of Ichiro’s Malt Card Series Whisky sold at yesterdays Bonham’s Auction in Hong Kong. Buyer paid US$917,000! To put this in perspective I would calculate the average price when these were sold retail and very slowly at the time, was about US$150 a bottle. A number of the first bottling’s were under 100 bucks a pop and the most expensive when released was the Monochrome Joker which I paid $AUD350 for. My simple maths is that if you bought the 54 bottling’s that sold at this auction when first released at average US$150 a bottle = US$8,100. If you think that average bottling price is inaccurate then you weren’t around at the time. I still have 8 of the bottling’s and sold another 5 so still have all the records of what I paid back in the day. I also used to have a link the Ichiro’s Venture Whisky website and you would be shocked to see how cheap these were when viewed in black and white.
Fact of the matter, the Hanyu distillery closed because no one was buying the stuff, though they certainly weren’t an island in that respect for Japanse Whisky. IMO the provenance of these bottling’s is only rarity. There are some excellent one’s and some average one’s, so it isn’t based on these all being stella tasting whiskies. Looking through Whiskybase the average bottle rating is about 88/100 which is still commendable but hardly commensurate with the price based on the juice alone. Only one bottling actually hit 91/100 and no Card Series Bottling is in the top 5 rated Hanyu on Whiskybase. Another thing is Ichiro san bottled these with Playing Card Labels as a marketing tactic. It was not based on these being the pick of the litter from the remaining casks. So, if these were not a set but just had regular labels, how much would they be worth. A shit load less I’d venture. I’ve tasted and own a number of other Hanyu that are the equal or better than some of the Card Series and although still expensive these day’s, nothing like the cost of a bottle from the Card Series. What price a simple label!!!.
If you wish to know what a true full set of 58 Ichiro’s Malt Card Series bottling’s constitutes it’s here.
If you missed it a bottle of Yamazaki 50 Year Old Single Malt Whisky sold for a record price at Auction on January 30 for US$299,000. The auction was held by Sotheby’s Hong Kong. The previous record for a single bottle of Japanese whisky was also held by a bottle of Yamazaki 50YO sold at auction in October 2016 for US$129,000. After having followed the whisky auction scene for a while I can safely say it if you want absolute top dollar, Hong Kong is the place to sell. It is certainly bolstered by the burgeoning Asian whisky scene. The problem I found however was that when I approached a certain auction house in HK to sell some of my whisky they did not accept consignments from outside of HK. The whisky had to already be in country. Not sure if this is the same for all the auction houses in HK.
Tonight at Bonham’s Auction Hong Kong a world record price was achieved for a single bottle of Japanese whisky. The bottling, a Karuizawa 1960 52YO Cask #5627 one of 41 bottles. Price with buyers premium was approximately US118,000, Euro105,000, GBP77,000. Original Price was GBP12,500 back in 2013. Also as reported in a recent post, an almost complete collection of Ichiro’s Card series was up for sale. This lot sold with buyers premium for approximately USD490,000, Euro436,000, GBP319,000. Obviously this is also a record for a single combined lot of Japanese whisky. I reckon that they would have cost no more than around USD10,000 if you were lucky to buy them all at retail prices. Share markets in turmoil…… seems at least for now we have a new ‘investment’ winner, or like gold, a bulwark during hard economic times?
Well the catalogue is out for