Investing in art

ColdIron

wmb194 said:

 mscott084 said:

ColdIron said:

mscott084 said:

You can look into other alternative assets such as forestry and renewable projects if you want to diversify away from the stock market.

Forestry and renewables, the home of many a scam. I would be very very wary of putting any of my cash into these

Even those that are not outright scams have a very high chance of failure

Why do you think it has a very high chance of failure? I'm currently looking into Ripple Energy, for example, and seems that it might be a good option as you directly benefit from lower electricity prices.

if you want your money* back you can simply sell your shares. No weird co-op setups involved.

*Plus or minus.

What if I want to leave?

• If you no longer want to own part of a project you can request to withdraw your membership. Ripple will then seek to match your request with members seeking to increase their ownership. Please note: you will not be able to withdraw your membership of the co-operative until the project has been operating for two years and after that you may not be able to withdraw your shares immediately.

https://rippleenergy.com/faq/all-questions

DullGreyGuy

Billxx said:

Art is not an investment, it does not return an income.  It's a gamble.

Love to know whose definition of investment you are using @billxx that requires something to pride an income to be considered an investment. Norman definition is about the intent to make a profit. 

Most investments are gambles... some more risky than others. Guess you've not realised those shareholders of all the companies that have gone bust in recent years lost their investment. 

I wouldnt invest in art as dont know anywhere near enough about it. A former client was a fine art insurer and they were fairly heavily invested in art (obviously not backing the insurance risk)... I understand they'd made good returns on those items they'd decided to sell. 

jimjames

mscott084 said:

ColdIron said:

mscott084 said:

You can look into other alternative assets such as forestry and renewable projects if you want to diversify away from the stock market.

Forestry and renewables, the home of many a scam. I would be very very wary of putting any of my cash into these

Even those that are not outright scams have a very high chance of failure

Why do you think it has a very high chance of failure? I'm currently looking into Ripple Energy, for example, and seems that it might be a good option as you directly benefit from lower electricity prices.

Ripple might be a good idea from a generation perspective for reducing bills but I don't think it's really an investment. It's also very limited value wise so while it might be worthwhile (I am a part owner) I wouldn't consider it part of my portfolio.

Bobajobbob

Some art can be an asset but I wouldn't class it as an investment. 99% of art is just disposable decoration and will never appreciate in price. There is a huge industry creating new art, artificially boosting its perceived value to encourage more FOMO buyers, for tax avoidance schemes and to maintain something of a ponzi.

Having said that my brother is a fine art dealer and advisor and makes a good living but this is built on 25 years of experience, education and building networks. My Dad also collected a number of pictures over his lifetime of a particular 20th Century British artist that he loved and these appreciated significantly in value.

As with all material assets its always better to buy objects that you appreciate and love first and foremost rather than buying for value appreciation. If you get lucky and buy something that they don't make any more and that others aspire too also then its value will likely appreciate. The only extremely high level advise I can give based on talking to my dealer brother is to avoid most modern art, prints, "editions" etc. There are exceptions (e.g. Banksy) but they are few and far between and it is generally the original works (not prints) that appreciate the most. Beware the Damian Hurst art factory. The 1000s of prints that are churned out of his "school" are unlikely to ever appreciate in the secondary market whereas if you buy an original work by a known artist who has a good auction history then you are increasing the chance of ongoing liquidity and buyers and thus appreciation in the future.

Billxx

DullGreyGuy said:

Billxx said:

Art is not an investment, it does not return an income.  It's a gamble.

Love to know whose definition of investment you are using @billxx that requires something to pride an income to be considered an investment. Norman definition is about the intent to make a profit. 

Most investments are gambles... some more risky than others. Guess you've not realised those shareholders of all the companies that have gone bust in recent years lost their investment. 

I wouldnt invest in art as dont know anywhere near enough about it. A former client was a fine art insurer and they were fairly heavily invested in art (obviously not backing the insurance risk)... I understand they'd made good returns on those items they'd decided to sell. 

I can't remember the source of that quote.  You are right - I know very little about investing.  As you say all investing is a gamble, but it strikes me that investing in art, wine, whisky etc is more of a gamble.  Interesting article in the Telegraph money pages today (Saturday 18th Feb) about a chap who invested in Whisky.  I am sure good returns are to be had, if you put the work in.

DannyCarey

Would you like to buy a jpeg picture of a stoned drooling ape?! Limited time offer

Schwarzwald

joebob said:

joebob said:

I have been thinking of dipping my toes into buying artwork as a way of diversifying my investments. A long way off yet from actually buying yet still doing research. Anyone on here invested and care to share their thoughts or tips etc.

What investments/classes do you already have? 

    Shares mainly and some premium bonds

There are a ton of other main stream asset classes you can tap into first before entering the very illiquid, very opaque and highly volatile art market 

flaneurs_lobster

Schwarzwald said:

There are a ton of other main stream asset classes you can tap into first before entering the very illiquid, very opaque and highly volatile art market 

..illiquid, opaque, highly volatile and somewhat fragile

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/arts/jeff-koons-sculpture-broken-miami.html

Schwarzwald

flaneurs_lobster said:

Schwarzwald said:

There are a ton of other main stream asset classes you can tap into first before entering the very illiquid, very opaque and highly volatile art market 

..illiquid, opaque, highly volatile and somewhat fragile

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/18/arts/jeff-koons-sculpture-broken-miami.html

💯!!

It might sound nice and cosy to invest into physical assets like art, wine, whiskey, vintage cars, but the warehousing and logistics of these assets classes and their associated costs seem often overlooked - leave alone the volatile demand side.

there are so many other assets classes besides just stocks and bonds that you can look into first, eg simply commodities to begin with, or claims/litigations, and even fx speculating while similarly risky but at least more liquid, lower transaction costs, …

Keep_pedalling

We have various original art in our house, but all were purchased because we loved them not as an investment.