Unusual investments

M Mum bought Dad a cask of Aberlour whisky many years ago for Christmas, he didn’t actually get it for a couple of years. Delivered in wooden crates, fine wood shavings and tissue wrapped bottles, we’ve still got a couple of bottles.
It was bought as a present and enjoyed as such, those left were shared out after he died, hence the couple we have

I know someone, who when he retired from banking, started buying whisky as an investment.
His investments are now worth millions of pounds.
The last time I bumped into him on the train, he was rather tipsy. He had been visiting a distillery in Perthshire.

As a family, we own a number of whisky barrels. empty and used as tables in our gardens. 😂

I'd be very wary of anything that's sold as an investment collectable because, too often, they run out not to be! Dealers may charge a fee whether buying or selling and if you're investing in comestibles you'll have to pay storage fees for them to be kept in the right conditions. Loose diamonds are good and gold should hold its value but there are a lot of stories out there which you should take with a pinch of salt (nobody likes to admit that they didn't make the killing they thought they would).

The Mail on Sunday regularly highlights investment scandals and the most common ones are people beings sold investments in fine wines and whisky.

Never invest in ''things', where you are not an expert and do not choose the specifics you invest in. If you know your wine and whisky and know what the ones most likely to be worth buying and keeping are, do so. Never do it if someone has to advise you what to buy.

Remember 'things' go in and out of fashion. Clarice Cliff pottery enjoyed a real spike in interest and value about 15 years ago. Now, it still commands a good price but nothing like it used to.

I do agree just leaving your money in the bank or building society may not earn much, but investing in the stock market through unit trusts that own a wide range of shares or buying shares direct, obviously has some risk, but considerably less than investing in 'things', unless you are an expert.

My best investment was in British Gas shares. I worked for the company when it was privatised and got an allocation at a reduced rate and got more as profit related pay. I wont tell you how much I have made, but many times my investment.

Sound advice MOnica.

After the crash in 2008 my son nagged and nagged me to buy shares in a certain bank that had just been bailed out, as so many were, by the government.

In the end I bought a few just to shut him up, but didn't go overboard.

Those shares have never been worth their original price, not in almost 17 years...

I still watch them from time to time, only intending to sell if they go even 1p above the original price or I'll leave them to my son in his will and he'll realise what a waste of money it was!

I have quite a bit of inherited gold which I’m hanging onto for the time being… tho I also know a handy jeweller ! I really wish I’d got into Bitcoin at the beginning but don’t think it’s worth doing now.

For whisky, you have to wait a long time for your whisky to mature, at least if it's a decent single malt. Companies generally offer a share in a barrel as a whole one costs a fortune.

My OH was gifted a bottle of whiskey in the 80's. It recently sold in auction for £750. Thank Goodness he doesn't like whiskey and never opened it.

A friend of ours buys whisky casks as an investment. He also gets a couple of bottles of malt whisky when the cask is finally opened, as well as a payment.

A colleague mentioned a relative who collected high end designer bags i.e Chanel / Dior etc

According to her they were a real investment.

Back in May 2021, I had a spare £300 which I decided to invest in Bitcoin in order to 'diversify my portfolio'. I haven't touched it since but I've just checked it and it's currently worth $1,026.01 - about £823.15. (I wish all my investments had done so well!)

Whisky cask investment is a nice thing for grandchildren.

If it’s whisky just make sure you aren’t buying the angel’s share😁!
A few years ago, DH used wine some spare cash and bought three gold bullion Brittania coins as an investment for our children and GS. They were well under a thousand pounds each. Today they are worth a little over £2,330 pounds each. Gold is going through the roof. I now wish we’d bought more at the time but I wasn’t keen. I thought it was a liability🙄!

Maria59

Whisky cask investment is a nice thing for grandchildren.

Why?

M0nica

Maria59

Whisky cask investment is a nice thing for grandchildren.

Why?

On average, the annual return on a cask of fine whisky is 12%. This number means it only takes 5 years to come back to the invested price and 6 years to make a profit. However, the best thing about whisky is its value will continue to grow as the whisky distils or the bottles increase in rarity.

Most whisky barrel investments are a scam and you get nothing. You need to already be an expert in the field, and probably pay over the odds to be confident you are getting what you pay for, plus , of course, storage costs.

Monica, my friend has made a lot of money from his whisky investments. He visits various distilliaries throughout Scotland, before purchasing.
Do you have experience of buying whisky, how do you know Most whisky barrel investments are a scam and you get nothing ?
Surely people do due diligence, before spending that amount of money.
I have actually seen whisky barrels in a distilliery, which are being stored for investers.

My husband has quite a few bottles of Bruichladdich collectibles, bought many years, which have appreciated greatly in value. He quite often buys two bottles the same time, one to drink and one to save as an investment. My don does the same.

Many years ago, my FIL was given a bottle of Royal Salute whisky, as a gift. He had decided to keep it for his wake, but changed his mind one Hogmanay. It was too late, by the time we found out it was worth £1000. What made it worse was my young BIL tried to put Irn Bru in it. FIL was not amused.

Marydoll from the number of people who write to newspaper financial advisors, lost and lots of people have bought into whiskyand fine wine scams. The villains when outed come back again and again under different names.

A lot of people do not do due diligence, or think they do, but it is grossly inadequate. In fact, a slight digression, it quite frightens me, when I read these columns is just how little checking out so many people do not do. Look at all those romance scams, not to mention finacial scams, timeshares, the lot. If a fool and their money are soon parted, there rae an awful lot of fools around.

M0nica, I find this a rather sweeping statement: Most whisky barrel investments are a scam and you get nothing.

Nothing wrong with buying bottles of whisky as an investment.
There is a whisky shop, we frequent in the East Neuk of Fife and the owner, was telling us that he had just done valuation for two elderly brothers, who had never married and had decided use their money to buy bottles whisky as an investment.
Their stash was worth millions.
He also showed us a bottle of whisky he had purchased for £750 six months earlier and was now worth over £1000. He was being offered all sorts of silly money by American tourists, desperate to buy the only one left in the world from that batch.

Not everyone is a fool, as you claim. If you buy from a reputable source, then there is little or no possibity of being scammed.
I don't see the correlation between romance scams and buying whisky! People who succumb to romance scams are usually lonely and vulnerable.

I’d be terrified of dropping the bottle. 😩

I must read the wrong newspapers. I have never seen anyone writing about a whisky or fine wine scam. I expect such scams exist, but it’s clear that ‘most’ of these schemes are not scams.

Me too Beechnut! My stepfather bought an expensive malt back from the Highlands 9 years ago for his brother’s then 90th birthday. We drove him and my mum over and when he took it out of the car, he had the presentation tube upside down 😮 and the bottle of whisky shot out and smashed on his brother’s drive. 😱

What could we do but laugh?

All the way transported back from a distillery in Scotland to end up in bits on a drive in the Midlands!

Oh dear! We had a similar episode when I was given a beautiful Waterford crystal decanter on my last day working for a small company. That was one Christmas Eve. My lovely boss had brought it back from Ireland the week before. I was making Christmas dinner the next day and heard an almighty smash then an ominous silence from the front room. DH had been showing it off to our guests, whipped out the stopper with a flourish and dropped it on top of the decanter. I still have the stopper. And the husband, but it was a close call.

They were not bought as investments but I have an enormous stash of very nice crafting materials eg `fluff` for spinning. I had various blends made many years ago eg cashmere/silk/merino. I packed each blend in a moth-proof bag and they moved with me and are now filling storage space in a bedroom. I am now actually spinning a black/grey/white blend of alpaca/silk/merino. It cost me about £30, nowadays it would cost around £120 and will make 3 beautiful jumpers

Same for beautiful indie spun yarns, alpaca/silk blends etc. All stored in special sealed cardboard casks and made in Devon

Same for my fabrics, many linens and various blends of fine natural fibres. All of them have at least doubled in price

At the time, I needed the endorphin lift so I make no apologies for my collection, which is all neatly labelled and catalogued as part of the dying tidy process. I am not buying any more and anything I make now is from my beautiful stash

That `investment` is proving to have been better than money in the bank and certainly better than gambling on gold