Market for classics dropping like a stone

DoubleEnder

Well-known member
Joined
27 Apr 2002
Messages
1,324
Location
N Hemisphere
Visit site
MARIQUITA is maybe the finest, purest and most photographed of classics. William Fife III and Fairlie Restorations in their pomp. And yet she has apparently been sold for €420,000 at auction.
Mariquita and Mariska declared sold - Classic Boat Magazine
I know she had been for sale for a while, and certainly she would be a demanding and expensive boat to run but this seems a very low price. Perhaps the yachts are like the Brown Furniture that is no longer fashionable and therefore very cheap You can buy lovely 18th century tables, chairs, etc for no more than you’d pay in IKEA...

dinosaur Dallas signing off
 
Last edited:

lw395

Well-known member
Joined
16 May 2007
Messages
41,951
Visit site
400-odd thousand euro is a lot of money in the real world.
Old boats are a terrible investment.
I suspect it's pretty similar to the world of small dayboats of the old classes, where the value of an old boat is between one and two years' operating budget?
Actually, with a big boat, you could get through a lot of money in a season.

I wonder if the boom in high prices and 'investment status' of everything from fine wine to classic cars, driven by low interest rates and poor returns elsewhere, is running out of steam?
 

Zing

Well-known member
Joined
7 Feb 2014
Messages
7,794
Visit site
That boat will cost £100 to £200,000 a year to own. A commitment to pay that from post tax income requires an income of say £300,000 a year. You can capitalise that at 7% allowing for some amortisation of cost, interest no depreciation to give an effective price paid of about £4.5m. That is the true price. The actual amount paid was just a token amount.
 

DoubleEnder

Well-known member
Joined
27 Apr 2002
Messages
1,324
Location
N Hemisphere
Visit site
I wonder if the boom in high prices and 'investment status' of everything from fine wine to classic cars, driven by low interest rates and poor returns elsewhere, is running out of steam?
Yes maybe. But wine and paintings and cars can be stored quite cheaply and do not deteriorate very quickly over time The wine might even get better. But boats.....
I don’t dispute the lack of investment appeal. But the prices that were being paid seem to have dropped quite far. The market has changed, rather than the reality, is what it looks like
 
Top