Macallan 18
Mark Littler LTD
A 28-year-old has sold a collection of whisky given to him each year by his father as a birthday present, for £44,000 ($57,363), in order to buy his first home.
Matthew Robson, who lives in Somerset in the south of England, was given a bottle of 18-year-old Macallan single malt each year since his birth.
His father, Pete Robson, started the tradition with Robson’s older brother, carrying it on with him and his younger sister. He has spent around £5,000 on Robson’s 28 bottles of whisky alone.
Pete Robson had originally planned for his children to have 18 bottles of the whisky by their 18th birthday. However, after he missed a year and spent months trying to find the right bottle, he discovered that it had almost doubled in value and realized the investment opportunity.
“It was a bit of luck and ingenuity at the time,” Robson told CNBC. He added that he was under strict instructions not to open the bottles.
Robson listed the collection for offers over £40,000 and accepted £44,000 from an overseas buyer, pending completion of the sale.
Mark Littler, the whisky broker managing the sale, said of the hundreds of sales of Macallan 18 he had brokered, he had never seen such a complete set.
Pete and Matthew Robson
‘Nest egg’
Robson, a supervisor for food processing group ABP, plans to use the funds for a house deposit, and said that without this opportunity he probably wouldn’t even be thinking about buying a home.
With the current holiday on U.K. property tax, known as stamp duty, he said it felt like the “perfect time to use that nest egg.” U.K. Finance Minister Rishi Sunak announced the break on stamp duty in July as part of measures to stimulate Britain’s economic amid the coronavirus pandemic.
And while Robson also has some money in stocks and shares, he said the whisky collection had enabled him to diversify his investments.
A bottle of Macallan 18 currently costs around £300, quite a big jump from the £21 that Robson said his father spent when he started collecting the whisky.
Despite this, Robson said the experience had taught him the value of putting a little money aside each month and he is starting his own collection this year for when he has kids.