Auction Watch

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Decided to post this thread so people can keep an eye on rare and exciting bottles of Irish Whiskey.

Whether you can afford it or not it may be of interest to see how Irish Whiskey fares at serious auctions.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

First up is the famous Bonhams auctions. They have a Whisky auction on the Wednesday 18 November 2009

Lot 73 ... Midleton 1993

Est £100 - £150

Should get more if there are any Irish colectors there.


Lot 74 ... Paddy Cork 800 - 1985

Est £400-£600

I'd be surprised it will reach those heights but hope it does.

Lot 179 ... Bushmills Millennium-1975Bushmills Madeira Finish-21 year old
2 bottles

Estimate: £140 - 180


Price probably around right for auction





Lot 217 ... Old Comber-7 year old

Estimate: £150 - 200

Decent bottle and should surpass that price easily if hte right people are there ...

Maybe I'll go myself

[jcskinner]

There's a big Christie's whisky auction coming up in New York, but there's very little Irish whiskey involved. All I could see was a single Redbreast 15 yo.
Stock is mostly coming from Park Avenue Liquor and some collections.
More info here:
http://www.christies.com/departments/wi ... ogues.aspx

[varizoltan]

why is there no whiskey auction in Ireland

[varizoltan]

or we may start it

[beeandvee88]

Thought people might be interested in knowing how Irish whiskey faired at the Mealys auction (castlecomer, Co. Kilkenny) on 25 November.

Lot 801 - Middleton 26YO (2000/01?) No. 365/1000 in original box - €500
Lot 802 - Middleton 30YO (1999/00) No. 289 in original box - €725
Lot 803 - Dungourney - bottle no. 739 - €450
Lot 804 - 2 bottles Jameson Millenium 15YO - €210
Lot 805 - Bushmills 21YO and Bushmills 1982 Millenium - €220
Lot 806 - Powers Millenium, 2 bottles Redbreast 12YO (Bow Street) and 2 further bottles of same 200ml each - €220

All hammer prices.

A mixed bag I would say and some of them dear.

beeandvee88

[beeandvee88]

Very unusual lot in Whytes fothcoming History and Literature sale lot 435 with description below.

http://www.whytes.ie/AuctionPDFs/20100423.pdf

Estimate is €1,500 - €2,500

Regards

beeandvee88

1836-1960. Cork Distilleries Collection including
sample bottles of whiskey
The collection includes 4 sample bottles of spirits dated and showing
strengths circa 1950s including a bottle, labelled in manuscript
“Watercourse Distillery Grain Whiskey” 1951 Stg. 14.5 O.P. This is probably
the only sample of its production extant. There is also an extensive range
of other items including Chambers memoranda (diary) dated 1836 with
entries made at month end with grain references. Midleton references
etc.; Table of Circles in Imperial Gallons to All Diameters 1902; a book of
instructions relating to making methylated spirits dated 1912; several
letters from the Customs and Excise Office in Cork to the Cork Distilleries
Company Limited circa 1920; Sampling book from 1947; wages book for
staff at the Fitton Street Cork bottling plant 1947-1960; sheet containing
a range of labels including one that states “Paddy, the only whiskey in the
World with £1000 guarantee that every drop sold is 10 years old”; The
Wine and Spirit Trade Diary 1951 with agency list; W. Reeves and Co.
“Instruments and appliance makers to the Brewing and distilling and
malting trades”. catalogue no. 48; Spirits Act. 23 & 24 Vict. Cap 114; a hand
written record of sampling notes relating to the trials of the new
Whiskey- later launched as Hewitt referring to role of Mr. Norbert
Murphy; also contained are personal references relating to the merger in
1966 of Paddy, Powers and Jameson; Sample book (special blends) dated
1930 onwards including “vodka experiment 1801” and some loose leaf
items including recipe for Gin, (Stevenson and Howell Ltd) sample made
16/01/1940; contacts in European, far eastern and American markets and
their requirement;1963 Diary with some hand written notes relating to
ongoing works in the new bottling plant at the North mall; analysis of
yearly output from Fitton Street bottling store from 1939, all entered by
hand. A very valuable archive relating to the history of Irish whiskey

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Very interesting all right ... 9 full sized bottles ranging from just under half full to nearly full. Picture in linked catalogue. And botle shapes vary slightly with one screw cap.

[varizoltan]

all those bottles have no original lable, so there is no proof of origin, and some dairybook with whatever content.

i think it is not worth more than 500-600 euros

it is way over estimated for 1500-2500

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Yes ZOLTAN, I'd agree these bottles are totally over valued and unless the accompaning journals represent a major insite into the Irish Distilling industry these are just possibly 9 bottles of bad whiskey with some distillery curious from the 50's. The low level bottles would be very suspect what ever about the fuller bottles.

[varizoltan]

just home from the auction

lot sold for 1450 euros on the floor

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Great price ... any idea who bought it? The IDL crew??? Possibly a better place for it any way as I'm not convinced the whiskey would of been any good going by the state of the corks.

[TheWhiskeyBro]

Hopefully it was IDL, went to the pre-sale viewing of the lot in Whyte's auction room on Molesworth St. An interesting archive of ledgers, sample notebooks, almanacs, old distilling laws etc. notes on the request for samples by Mr Norbert (Master Blender?) relating to blends of Paddy & Hewitts. Also some blend requests from individual customers (presumably UK spirit merchants etc) as sales of casks were still popular at that time, a practice did not die out until the late 1960s. The documents as far as I can tell came out of the North Mall bottling facility when it was being cleared out/modernised?

Most of the whiskey seemed to be cask strength form 1940s/1950s, would be very interesting to compare the output from that period to today's.

If IDL bought it, it would return to it's rightful home.

Must enquire about the company archives at some stage, love to do some research to compliment my own

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

McTears latest Catalogue is out now.

Main Irish interest lots

Lot 6. Old Comber 30yo Est £200-240
Lot 137. Midleton 1984 Est £220-260
Lot 267-269. Bushmills Millennium Est £90-130
Lot 319. Bushmills 10yo, Crested 10 & Glenfiddich 12yo Est £30-50

[John]

Just went on to the McTears auction website. Is it just me or does there seem to be an incredible number of bottles for auction through that one site? Maybe it is a sign of the times but the world and it's mother must be selling entire collections!
Why anyone would want to go to the trouble of selling a Bushmills 10yo, Crested 10 & Glenfiddich 12yo at aution is beyond me though.
J.

[JohnM]

I believe there are loads of people trying to get rid of their collections because of the economic climate.

That lot might be part of a much bigger lot. I think they just group tings like that together. I know someone who sold through McTears and that's what they did.

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

JohnM has hit the nail on the head. A person may submit their entire collection for sale including the crap. The auction house then puts the crap into groups like the one you mentioned.

[PureDrop]

A case of 24 Half bottles of J.Jameson&sons 76% Proof Guaranteed 10 Year old (from Prestons)
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=220629703960
One for the society?

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

That looks very interesting Michael, possibly a bit on the expensive side when there is 24 of them but I would not mind getting my hands on one. Up north too so possibly someone could collect them if we did go for them.

I'd be on for making a lower offer though.

On a side I came across this interesting piece of Jameson-alia

[jcskinner]

I'd like to see the society purchase these at a fair price then offer some of them to members, while retaining one for a tasting and the rest for archives.
In that event, I'll volunteer to pick them up. I'm up and down all the time to the North.

[JohnM]

There's also a Powers 15 on whiskyauction.com that the society could buy. Haven't seen too many of these, although I have one. Might open it some day, but would prefer to see if it's worth it first!

[jcskinner]

I saw that - it seems to be attracting quite a bit of interest. I'm not familiar with the bottling at all. Seems to have been for export?

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Yes seen a few of these before ... there was even a pub in Galway that had one but it had been finished before I could get a chance to try it

A bit over priced for these times

There was the initial Midleton (Pre Midleton VR) bottled in this bottle also and there may have been a 15yo Jameson version too but JohnM may be able to confirm that.

[JohnM]

I've never seen the Jameson 15, but it may exist. The Midleton and the Powers are the exact same bottle, sure enough.

All the Powers ones I've seen have some from Italy.

[TheWhiskeyBro]

The only Jameson bottles that might be contemporaneous (I enjoyed using that word!) are this 12yo

(1) http://whiskyauctionhistory.com/cgi-bin ... ini=0zzzzz

or this 15yo

(2) http://whiskyauctionhistory.com/cgi-bin ... ini=0zzzzz