Your attitude towards rum investing

We have discussed the price increases due to rum becoming a collector item („Investors Corner“ or where will prices soar). Here, I’d like to follow this up from another angle: do you think that the overall impact of investing practices on the rum market is wholesome, or rather detrimental? I know there are ones who say “rum is only for drinking, investors should not interfere” and the other side “if I can earn on this then why not”. I’m just curious what your oppinion is.

How do you feel about rum investors?
  • very good
  • somehow good
  • neutral
  • somehow bad
  • bad

0 voters

And yet another research item out of my curiosity

Have you ever purchased a bottle of rum just to store it and sell later?
  • yes
  • no

0 voters

I made the pools ananymous because I know the topic rises controversions. I am, however, charmed by how adult this community is and how our civilized our discussions are. If we go through this topic we can really talk about anything rum-related :slight_smile:

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If you could please define the (preferably clear) distinction between “investors” and “flippers” this would be easier.

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My2c:
I don’t care what others do with their bottles, they have bought. It is none of my business. A rare bottle someone else gets, instead of me, is lost for me no matter what he is doing with that bottle (drinking, flipping, dust collecting etc.).
I never got that constant bragging and complaining about flipper/flipping either. Almost everyone I know was/is a flipper to a certain extent. And investor/investing is just the euphemism for the same action (at least to me). Ye, of course investor refers more to the long term, but in the end it is the same. Making a profit with selling a bottle.
Rum (at least the rum we are talking about) is a limited good and thus follows the same demand/supply mechanism like any other limited stuff in the world. If there is anyone to blame, than it is our economical system.

Tl;dr:
Each to his own :innocent:

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Glossary as I see it :slight_smile:

  • A “collector” is someone who would not drink the bottle but just enjoys owning it.
  • An “investor” is someone who buys, with intention to sell. If the period between buying and selling is long, I think they build a temporary collection as well :slight_smile:
  • A “flipper” is a kind of investor who focuses on fast actions, aiming at finding bargains and immediatelly re-selling at regular prices.
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You forgot the “collipper”. Thats a collector who flipps a bottle in order to purchase another expensive bottle from an investor/collector. :grinning: :grinning: :grinning:

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wow, I haven’t heard of this one.
But I heard about a strategy where people bought 2 botles to sell one for double price and then drink the other one “for free”

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And the little group of “real-to-scrap flippers” are also missing:
Buy (“collect”)& sell limited pure rum in order to finance overpriced liquer for personal consumption…:wink:

@ Kudzey
This is exactly the reason, why so much bureaucracy ist necessary.
Meanwhile there are probably more & more people without registered business, who perodically sell luxus goods high (!) above purchase price and generate profits as a result (without paying taxes for that).
That goes without saying, that neither the registered shops nor the state accept this (apart from the fact, that the consumer doesn’t love to pay twice the price…:wink:).
If you share/sell your goods at your own expense, (apart from the bureaucracy) no one cares in the end, because there is no competition & profit, or?

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Interesting topic that can also divide :sweat_smile:

My very personal opinion: I am globally against speculation in rum and therefore against investment. People do what they want, earn money as they wish, this does not bother me. What bothers me are mainly two long term effects:

  • the impossibility to find references that one loved as soon as they fall into the investment category or at exorbitant prices
  • general price increase of all rum

Unfortunately, I can’t stop it and all the good intentions in the world won’t change anything, as long as there is money to be made, there will be people to come and do it. Moreover, the system is self-feeding and even affects amateurs. Some will try to catch a rare double bottle at retail cost to pay for their own with the resale of the second one… While in other times they would have simply taken theirs at a “decent” price.
Anyway I don’t care if people do it, I understand it too. But I don’t like the effects, except that I won’t be able to change much, so I go with it.
I’m just fighting in my own way, trying to get as many rare bottles as possible to offer them to the amateurs here because I know that they will be drunk/shared and not sold (I really hope I’m not wrong :sweat_smile: ).
Fortunately for me (and for the members here who enjoy it from time to time :wink: ) my seller is a passionate person who becomes a friend with time and if I can get these bottles back, it’s thanks to him because he also regrets this speculation which in the end harms the non-wealthy enthusiasts.

Of course I would not be a human being if I were not paradoxical from time to time… So I will tell an anecdote of which I am not proud of.
When my vendor got rid of his stock of Velier caroni in 2021, I bought 2x the guyana stock (yellow), an employee and the “the last”. I figured I’d make a few profits and only spend it on buying bottles that were too expensive for me.
First I sold the caroni employee 700€ when I had paid only 350€ and with this money I bought the caroni guyana stock. I only knew the caroni velier by reputation so I absolutely wanted to taste it but I refused to pay so much for a bottle. In the end I really didn’t like it (and to be honsest, I still don’t understand why this bottle is so well reviewed by many).
Then I took the time to think about it. I had so many messages on ebay, this was crazy. And I sold the second guyana stock and the last one at the price I paid for them, I hope it was for an amateur. When I see their prices today I tell myself that I could have gone to Martinique! :joy:
As there is a positive side to every story: the second bottle of guyana stock is the one that brought me here because it was the first thing I did when I arrived: sell what was left at the price I had paid for it. At least it was drunk by someone who appreciates it.

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My new tiki mug somehow fits to that topic :rofl:

I always get a bad feeling about people who earn their money from buying and selling things without addind any value to it (trading shares as worst example). Essentually they earn money from someone elses (bad) circumstances what from my point of view is in general bad social behaivior.
And as the rules of the free market also apply to our beloved rum we need to face it: certain bottlings are object of speculation and some are even desined and marketed as such!

But as I was socialized in the former GDR I never got fully convinced by the capitalits paradigm of profit maximisation in a world of limited recources. However - I try to stick to some rules about my rum collection. Two of them are “never buy a bottle twice” and “never pay more than 150% of the retail price”.

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while I don’t like the effects of speculation and investment in commodities like rum, it should be everyone’s choice in a liberal, free society.
To some extent, prices are driven by quality, and to that extent it reflects the passion, time and effort that is needed to create an outstanding product.
Beyond that, when prices are just driven by speculators, we have the choice to by or share rums like the recently (today) rated Corman Collins Caroni instead of the 4-5 times more expensive Veliers.
I have to confess that the ratings and myth around some Demerara and Velier rums dragged me in some purchases when I had some money left to spend. Not with the intention to sell it later but to drink. But I still resist to open them knowing that they are gone then. On the other side, we have to enjoy during live time.

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Great points :slight_smile: and it’s fantastic so many people voted. Thanks for the honesty and also great culture of discussion (is this forum really on the internet? :laughing:)

From my perspective, the biggest “flippers” are the auction houses. They don’t even own the bottles in the intermediary process but take some 20% (some more hardcore even 40%) of the value with every transaction. I think this fee is also the factor of why the price increases with every rum transaction: as a seller you might not be interested in earning but you certainly don’t wana loose so you need the price to compensate for the auction fees. (On the other hand, they also provide much proffesionalism, databases and wide market access)

And I wanted to underline it here: we have greater knowledge than the investor who just invests. Remember Dark Matter Inaugural Release: Physicist Series 'Einstein' / Bottle #001 | Rum Auctioneer? Actually it made me very anxious of the direction the rum world is heading towards. Luckily it turned out to be the one-time event. (Sorry to the distiller, but) I don’t think I’d ever put even a fraction of my money into such rum from otherwise unknown source. I heard voices that the rum market drawn attention of the whisky collectors, with no rum expertise. And this is where our rum expertise shines, if we want to drink a good rum we can find a better price/quality ratio from some independent bottler.

There is another thing difficult for me, namely extremely high release prices (like the Dictador 1976 Generations in Lalique | Rum Auctioneer - this is available in 5(!) Polish shops for some 12 000 EUR). It’s really hard to imagine who represents a targett market for this product. Anyway, I will keep saying, with our expertise we easily evade those practices. However, in my oppinion, this shows the rum world from bad perspective to new people.

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Seeing as I’ve never sold a bottle so far, that puts me in the drinker/collector category.
If I were to sell at least one bottle with profit, that would make me a drinker/collector/investor/flipper.

The way I see it: I’d rather have a part of my money put towards my collection (which I enjoy creating very much) in stead of put everything in my savings account or in stocks and stuff like that. Stocks can go up and down or even dissolve completely if the market would crash, so no more money.

I don’t really care if bottles increase or decrease in value so far. Worst (or best?) case scenario: the rum would be worth nothing but I would still have a great bottle to enjoy :heart_eyes:

Best(?) case scenario: a bottle rises to an insane level. I’m afraid to open it because it’s worth so much and I decide to sell it because yay money! Then I’ll cry a bit in a corner because I sold a great bottle :joy:

But if I would have struck some gold here or there by any chance and it would benefit me or my family to sell a certain bottle at a certain moment, I would definitely consider that option. I think that, for me, it would be crucial that there would be a goal involved for selling a bottle, not just to buy another bottle.

Overall: capitalism is what it is. If you can’t change it, roll with it. Not a fan whatsoever of the short term flippers who try to make as much money as possible with a quick sale.

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100 % agree! :+1:

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Also there is the possibility to be able to afford other, even greater Bottles of Rum if you might do a sell or two.

I know of a lot people with dozens of rum bottles, that they wont open anymore, because they grew out of the taste (spanish style for example). Now if you sell them (even with a loss), you might rack up some small/medium 4 digit € amount and buy those tasty expensive modern bottles that you like nowadays.
And here comes the crux: Maybe some of your older spanish bottles might even have increased in value (looking at you Diplomatico 2000, 2001, 2002s). So does the selling of those bottles make you an investor, flipper, evil person? Or is it just rearranging your collection?

Im just against any prejudgement or harassment of people who sell bottles here and there. And happy that this thread shows, that we can discuss the topic like adults. (And also, that the majority has bought bottles just to sell them. Arbitrage trades are unfortunately a big thing, since not all countrys have the same availability of spirits or certain brands)

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With this discussion going on, I checked the app and observed that this is one of my top bottles. Should I consider selling it? :smiley:

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I think your objection is good, but the intention to sell bottles is then quite different here!
The bottles were therefore initially bought to collect them and not as quickly as possible to make a profit with it!
Basically, I personally do not care what everyone does with his bottles!
However, I must not approve of everything!

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I think it’s always a matter of defining the person’s actual behavior.

In my opinion, getting rid of old sugar juice or bad purchases or thinning out the collection from time to time e.g. because of a change of preferences and maybe selling/exchanging old rarities to other nerds is something completely different than to buy up regularly (!) limited, potentially “wanted” goods in France, Italy, Belgium, Germany as much as possible in order to make a quick profit on eBay, RA (…) afterwards.

Of course you can say that these people have understood capitalism completely, but within a growing group of fans such selfish behavior is poison, since more and more consumers are without a ticket because of these resellers or have to pay regularly high above retail price.
This commercial (!) competition is certainly unwelcome for the dealers, who still sell this stuff at retail prices.
How such behavior has had a negative impact on price developments in recent years has already been extensively discussed.

And if perhaps even such bottle hoarding resellers benefit from the databases created by nerds or even from offers from members of the forums (e.g. resell bottles regularly at the highest price but order samples and bottles in forums from loyal fans at purchase price), then I don’t know if this behavior can still be described as “social”…:wink:
But I think that every larger group has one or two of those black sheeps.
And what I have read so far in terms of statements on this topic certainly does not meet my definition of a reseller.
Real Resellers will probably stay in the background.
And quite the opposite of that, personal experience has shown, that there are many people in this forum, who even selflessly search for bottles for other fans or sell excess stock at (nearly) retail price/personal cost.

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Du schreibst: “Mir geht es hier, wie ich glaube den meisten, um den Austausch über das Produkt an sich. Nicht über den Wert.”

Die Masse der App- User scheint anders zu ticken.
Zumindest bei den Flaschen, die ich aktuell habe, liegen die Öffnungsraten meist unter 20 %
Nur mal nebenbei.

Ich versuche immer wenigstens 2 Flaschen zu bekommen, das lässt mir nach 3-8 Jahren die Option offen eine zu verkaufen und vielleicht dann die andere zu trinken und trotzdem einen Geldgewinn zu machen.
Aber meist sind die dann so im Peis gestiegen, dass ich eher zum verkaufen neige.

Aber auch das macht ein gutes Gefühl und der Zinssatz liegt schon über dem von der EZB.

Habe meinen Kindern gerade empfohlen einen Teil ihrer Altersvorsorge in RumGold anzulegen.

Frage allgemein:
Gibt es börsennotierte Rum-Fonds?
Wäre echt gut, meine Erfahrung, mehr Rendite kannst du nur noch mit Krieg machen.

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Hat zwar nicht viel mit der begonnenen Diskussion zu tun, ist aber eine geile Flasche :hugs:

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Meine Rate liegt wahrscheinlich auch unter 20%. Das liegt aber an dem Produkt an sich, da 70cl Flaschen einfach teilweise 1-3 Jahre benötigen um geleert zu werden. Und mehr als 10 Flaschen will ich nicht aufmachen. Ich habe aber auch weit über 100 Samples … daher erledigt sich das oftmals mit dem öffnen. Neue aktuelle Flaschen splite ich mittlerweile deshalb in der Regel direkt. Wie gesagt ist ja auch cool zu sammeln und macht Spaß. Das Thema “welchen Wert hat meine Sammlung” ist für mich halt aktuell nicht so spannend. Wird irgendwann vielleicht ja noch kommen. Aktuell will ich alle Flaschen irgendwann mal alle aufmachen :grin::innocent:

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