By Patrick F. Cannon

A bottle of Domaine de la Romanee Conti red Burgundy, vintage 1945, sold for $558,000 at auction, the highest price ever paid for a standard-size bottle of wine. That must have been a good year, because a bottle of Chateau Mouton-Rothschild red Bordeaux of the same vintage sold for $310,000. Not to be completely outdone by the French, a bottle of Screaming Eagle California Cabernet Sauvignon (the main grape used in Bordeaux as well) once sold for $500,000. It was a relative youngster, vintage 1992.

At nearly 80 years old, are the French wines still drinkable? Maybe; then again, maybe not. Because of that doubt, I have always been puzzled by wine collectors. On the rare occasions when one of these bottles is opened, it’s just as likely to be undrinkable as it is to be transcendent. And there’s so much chicanery in this market that the finest Gallo Hearty Burgundy might be lurking in that bottle of Chateaux Margaux.

Collectors are interesting people though. Many are speculators, making bets on the future. I was watching a car auction recently, and several of the offerings were essentially brand new models that had been made in limited numbers or were the last of their kind. They had the kind of mileage a new car would have; some even had their protective covers intact. The idea was to buy the car new, wait a year of two, then hopefully sell at a profit. The seller would put a reserve price that would guaranty at least a small profit. Amazingly, to me anyway, a car bought for $100,000 often sold for $150,000 or even more.

The contemporary art market is similar, it seems to me. The collectors who bet on Warhol, Basquit or Jeff Koons early on have been amply rewarded for betting on what could become fashionable among the gullible (including museums). What their investments will look like in 100 years is open to question, but why should they care?

I’m not really a collector. If I had had enough dough when I was younger, I might have bought myself a Ferrari, but I would have driven it, even if only in good weather. Many years ago, I almost bought a small Rembrandt etching of a young man reading. It had been printed during Rembrandt’s lifetime, and could have been had for about $10,000. I decided against it. Had I bought it, it would be worth about $35,000 today. I think I spent the money on a new roof instead. (By the way, to me a single Rembrandt self-portrait is worth more than all of Warhol’s and Koon’s collected works.).

Of course, some people collect stuff because they love it. I had a colleague once who collected baseball cards. He was may age, and started collecting in 1945 or thereabouts. Why? He loved baseball. I’m sure lurking in his collection were cards worth a lot of money. But, alas, he stored them in his basement, which flooded one day when he wasn’t at home. He mourned their loss, not for the money, but for the love.

In comparison, what are we to think if the Saudi Arabian prince who paid a record $450.3 million for Salvator Mundi, a “lost” painting by Leonardo da Vinci? Did he buy it for love or ego? Does it hang in his bedroom, or languish in a vault?

The greatest fear of collectors in it for profit is the fickleness of the market. If you watch Antiques Roadshow, you may have noticed that the market for so-called “brown” furniture (Georgian, Regency, etc.), has declined significantly. And most of those collector plates that you used to see advertised in the Sunday supplements are now worthless (and the Sunday supplements are gone too). On the other hand, the strangest collectible of all, Beanie Babies, seem to be holding their own. I just saw one advertised at $40,000.

But the most successful collector I ever knew was Guido “The Collector” Santucci, from the old Italian neighborhood in Chicago where I used to live. I think his collecting must also have had something to do with baseball, since he always seemed to have a bat in his hand.

Copyright 2024, Patrick F. Cannon