Buying Art

donalh087

I have some money put aside for kids education and got a statement from the Post Office recently and the interest is tiny. I will need the money in about 10 years time but in the meantime I was thinking about buying some art. I'm not looking to make money but I really don't want to lose. Two pieces of advice required.

1. Would I be better off buying one 'blue chip' (Yeats, Lavery, Osborne) small piece (€15k - €20k) or eight or ten lessor know (Markey Robinson, Evie Hone, Bobby Ballagh etc).

2. Donedeal/Adverts/ebay are very light on fine art and the commission on any auction/gallery can make a 10 year investment pointless. Is there any private sale websites like Donedeal for art?

Any other advice is welcome too.

For ever odd

I remember reading about Art and fine wines been the choice of safe haven when the price of gold was sliding down. This was about 2-3 years ago, so might explain the thinness of pieces available. I would imagine the prices have gone up due to supply.

BrokenArrows

Surely art as an investment is very subjective with a high risk of loss?
Also you would need to worry about storing the pieces for a long period of time.

Francie Barrett

I don't know about fine art, but I have a stamp and coin collection from childhood. The stamp collection has probably lost not only real value, but nominal value in the last 30 years. The coin collection has probably done a little better, but only because the value of silver has rocketed. The big problem is that collecting coins and stamps has gone out of fashion, just like artists come and go out of fashion. I think if you want to take a punt on art, it should be for maybe 5% of your assets as there is a good chance you won't make money off it at all.

Francie Barrett

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Surely art as an investment is very subjective with a high risk of loss?
Also you would need to worry about storing the pieces for a long period of time.

You can insure, but that obviously gives you a negative carry.

BrokenArrows

If you want a risk free investment which will return 1.5% AER ( 16% tax free after 10 years) then you could look into a 10 year state bond.
That should somewhat offset the rate of inflation.
http://www.statesavings.ie/products/Pages/NationalSolidarityBond.aspx

You could lump the money into prize bonds. There is a big thread here which indicates the rate of return is around 1.6% which is also tax free. So slightly higher than the bond. You could be lucky and win big or unlucky and win less.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056292513

Your other options are stocks, gold, art etc but those require some active work over the 10 years and obviously risky.

donalh087

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Surely art as an investment is very subjective with a high risk of loss?

Ah yes, absolutely, but there are some are artists who become so popular their work verges on being a commodity. Le Brocquy's heads for example will always command a certain value (although the price dropped around his death). Even small works by Jack Yeats will always sell. There are probably less than 10 absolutely blue chip Irish artists but they all sell well. There is another layer of say, 20 beneath them that are reliable but quite as blue chip.