Art has ranked as the best performing collectible in Knight Frank’s latest Luxury Investment Index.
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Novice collectors should focus their investing efforts on what brings them happiness amid wider economic uncertainty and unpredictable returns, according to Knight Frank’s Luxury Investment Index, released Tuesday.
The index—which tracks 10 luxury collectibles: art, watches, jewelry, coins, wine, classic cars, colored diamonds, handbags, furniture, and rare whisky—found that as a whole, the value of these collectibles rose 7% in the 12 months to the end of June.
While that outpaces the returns on some other assets, including prime property in central London (down 1% over the same time), the FTSE 100 Index (up by 5%), and gold (up 1%), it was the weakest annual performance for collectibles since the second quarter of 2021, Knight Frank said.
“Economic uncertainty and higher interest rates will cast a long shadow on luxury collectibles,” said Knight Frank’s
Andrew Shirley,
editor of the index. “Novice collectors should focus on what brings them joy, perhaps that’s more important now that value appreciation is far from guaranteed in these asset classes.”
Knight Frank
Art topped the index by a longshot, growing in value by 30% in the year through the end of June, according to Art Market Research’s (AMR) All Art index, which uses data from auction sales worldwide.
However, those gains may have already peaked.
“The auction season’s spring sales are the first measure of market confidence and recent results suggest growth is already starting to slow,” AMR’s Sebastien Duthy said.
Following art, watches (10%), and jewelry (10%) rounded out the top-three best-performing collectibles of the past year.
Rare bottles of whisky were the only asset in the index to see values drop in the short term—down 4%—but collectible tipples ranked as the strongest 10-year performer, with prices rising 322% over the last decade.
“Bottles of rare whisky have had a far more sedate time from a performance perspective over the past three years,” industry consultant Andy Simpson, of Rare Whisky 101, said in the report. “Higher value (more than £5,000 (US$6,370)) bottles have re-traced recently due to a myriad of geo-political, social, and economic reasons.”
