After huge gains in January and February, March saw a decline in prices. The Ardbeg Blaaack Committee Reserve arrived at auctions, and we take a look at the Archival Folio 5 again. Here is our Price Update for March 2020.
Due to the extraordinary circumstances, ScotchWhiskyAuctions.com postponed its auction. Our price observations for March 2020 come solely from WhiskyAuction.com and WhiskyAuctioneer.com. Nevertheless, we saw more than 8.400 bottles of whisky changing their owner.
Our Whiskystats Whisky Index (WWI) reached a peak in July 2019 at around 217 points. Throughout the rest of 2019, it then dropped back below 200 points again. January and February 2020 saw a strong increase with a new all-time peak reached at 220 points. In last week’s latest round of auctions, the 500 most traded whiskies lost around 3,2% in value. What caused this slight downward movement remains to be seen during the months to come. This will also show if the market establishes this volatile sidewards movement which we have observed since mid-2018 or if it breaks out again, in whatever direction.
In contrast to the WWI, our Fabulous Fifty collection consists of the same whiskies every month. However, the total worth of these fifty prestigious releases shows a similar pattern as the overall market. Since mid-2018, prices have stabilized at around 125 thousand Euros. Our Fab50 index peaked in July 2019 and lost 2,6% in the latest round of auctions. Looking at the bottles included, we notice that the Talisker 20yo 2002 release has not been traded since July 2018. We might need to replace this bottle with another, more frequently traded release from the Islands in the future. If you have any suggestions, let us know in the comments below or contact us directly.
Even Setback
Once again, we turn our attention to the region indices to determine what caused the decline we have seen above. These indices represent the change in value of the 100 most traded whiskies from each region. We see that all region indices are in the reds. Islay, Speyside and the Lowlands all lost around 5%. The most-traded Highland releases even gave way more than 6% in value. The best performing regions were Campbeltown and Japan, which lost less than 2% in March. So it seems like this was indeed a downward movement of the whole market rather than some specific subset.
Our distillery indices also back this. Out of the top fifteen, only Yamazaki gained 0,7%. All others lost, some quite significantly. The most-traded whiskies from Rosebank, Dalmore, and Glendronach lost more than 7% in value. But then again, these were precisely those distilleries which gained the most in February. Further down the list, we find some gains too. Chichibu went up by more than 6%, and so did Benromach. Miyagikyo and Yoichi profited from the fact that there were not enough bottles traded for us to calculate an index update; hence they stayed unchanged and did not lose any points.
Remarkable Trades
And finally, we want to point out some remarkable trades we observed this month. The Macallan Archival Series Folio 5 was again the most traded whisky. The 29 trades averaged around 565 Euros. However, we again notice considerable differences in prices between the auctioneers. The lots at WhiskyAuctioneer.com ranged from 536 to 560 Euros, while at WhiskyAuction.com, prices started at 688 Euros and went all the way to 800 Euros. Even when considering delivery costs, keeping an overview of past auction results across multiple platforms could have saved more than 100 Euros. If you think so as well, take a look at the Whiskystats Insidership and try it out for 30 days for free.
Also, among the most traded whiskies of the month, there is the Ardbeg Blaaack Committee Reserve. The 24 trades ranged from 246 to 295 and averaged 260 Euros. Another bottle we want to point out was the Hanyu Colour Joker, which changed ownership for no less than 6.400 Euros. A couple of months ago, this member of the Hanyu Playing Card series was available for less than 3.000 Euros. In February, the price tag jumped to 4.700 Euros and now even surpassed 6.000 Euros. All of these record trades come from one auctioneer alone. One can only wonder if the bidders at the other platforms will follow the way and prices remain at this level or if they will fall back again.
Overall it is an extraordinary time we are going through now, and it will be interesting to discover how the secondary whisky market will react to these new conditions. Information will be king, so stay up-to-date and track the value of your personal whisky collection on Whiskystats.
Disclaimer: the whisky market insights presented in this article are based on the Whiskystats database at the time of publication. Whiskystats is constantly adding new data, and therefore some charts and figures may not match after initial publication.